Paris: The Second Day

The second day in Paris, Alex and I got on the RER train line and went outside the city, to Versailles, where we spent a good chunk of the day touring the palace and grounds of Louis the Fourteenth. We visited the Hall of Mirrors and walked the gardens until the early afternoon. We then returned to the city to visit the Musee d'Orsay, the art museum of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionist groups. After spending a few hours seeing some of the most famous painting of Monet, Van Gogh, Cezanne and the like, we went back into the Montmartre area for dinner. After a very nice dinner, I ventured up to Sacré-Cœur, the basilica in Montmarte which sits on the hill and overlooks the entire city. It was a full day of sights and very enjoyable!

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Versailles:

The palace of Versailles was built by King Louis the Thirteenth as a hunting chateau outside the city of Paris in 1624. It was expanded by Louis the Fourteenth into one of the largest palaces in Europe, well adorned with gold and lavish architecture.  It was the ultimate symbol of opulence for Louis XIV, who fancied himself "The Sun King" and whose ambitious foreign policy plunged Europe into several bloody conflicts, including the Franco-Dutch War, The War of the Grand Alliance, and The War of Spanish Succession. Louis XIV officially moved his court out to Versailles from Paris in 1682, and from this point on, until the French Revolution, it would serve as the seat of the monarchy in France.

Louis XIV

The Golden Gated entrance to Versailles 

The Gardens of Versailles

The royal family was forced to evacuate the palace in October 1789 as the citizens of Paris, specifically the women, marched on Versailles, angered and made desperate by a scarcity of food. This famous "Women's March" compelled the monarch, Louis XVI, and his family to return to Paris and is marked as one of the significant events of the onset of the French Revolution. The property of Versailles was officially confiscated by the Assemblée nationale constituante in June of 1791 as Louis lost more and more power. He was guillotined with his wife, Marie Antoinette, on January 21st, 1793.  

The Hall of Mirrors

The Hall of Mirrors is quite possibly the most famous feature of the Palace of Versailles, as it has held particular significance in European history. In a twist of irony, the Hall of Mirrors is the birthplace of the Second German Empire. In the wake of a French defeat by the Prussians in the Franco-Prussian war, the Prussian king, Wilhelm the First, was declared Emperor of Germany in the Hall of Mirrors, establishing the Second Reich on January 18, 1871. The French, humiliated by such a stinging political insult following a crushing military defeat, eventually got even, however. The French Premier, Clemenceau, chose the Hall of Mirrors as the location for the final signing of the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War One, putting into effect the punitive measures that would wreck Germany in the aftermath of the Great War, in the very room where the German empire had been born.

Alex and I wandered around the gardens and palace all morning, and by lunch time we were very hungry. There were a few tea rooms, cafes, and restaurants on the grounds, but every place we looked at was far too overpriced. Luckily, our friend Josh, who had been to Versailles before, had told us about a baked potato cart that he had found there for cheap. We searched all over the extensive gardens and lakes area, but could not find this elusive cart. Finally, as we were about to give up and pay for some overpriced sandwiches, we found his cart, and a delicious baked potato topped with beef stew-- just six euro! Not too bad.

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   Musee d'Orsay: 

That afternoon, I went to the Musee d'Orsay to see the best collection of Impressionism and Post Impressionist Art in the world. This past semester, I took a course on European art at the turn of the century, so this included a lot of the artwork housed in the Musee d'Orsay. Artists such as Manet, Monet, Pissaro, Caillebotte, Gauguin, Cezanne, Degas and Van Gogh are featured in the museum along with art movements like pointillism, impressionism, post-impressionism, nabis, and art nouveau.

Some of the most famous and best works that I saw:

 Olympia, 1863 by Manet

 The Magpie, 1868 by Monet

The Floor Scrapers, 1875 by Caillebotte

View from the balcony of Musee d'Orsay

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Montmartre and Sacré-Cœur:

That night, we dined well in a restaurant in Montmartre, with some of the best wine I have ever tried. I had escargot des burgogne and sole, along with a very nice pear dish for dessert. I liked the snails, they were cooked in a garlic butter sauce which helped mask any kind of "garden" taste they might have had. The sole was delicious and the pear tart was a good way to round it off. 

The Montmartre District is on the hill overlooking the rest of the city. It has perennially been famous for its artistic and savant-like feel. It was the stomping grounds of such bohemians as Earnest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Oscar Wilde, Claude Monet, Salvador Dali, and Picasso. It still maintains this feel, as you walk its streets at night and pass people in the cafes and out in the streets, drinking, playing instruments, singing, and enjoying the evening. 

The feature image of the area is the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur, which dominates the hill and looks out over Paris. At night, it is lit up and people sit on the large sweeping steps, drinking bottles of wine and enjoying the view. 

Statue of Joan of Arc, at the Sacré-Cœur