The Felicitous Life: Paris - Day 3: Versailles von Wilhelm

And now, without further ado, the long awaited guest post from His Royal Highness, the Regent of Ashbury, Sovereign of the Couchness Region, Prince Wilhelm the II.

Yes, indeed. Welcome to my blog post. I should point out at the outset, the blogger responsible for updating and maintaing this site has been appointed by myself, His Royal Highness, to accurately update you all on my comings and goings. I've given her the day off. Well now, where to begin?

This is a statue of my likeness, welcoming you to my home in the country. A little chateau we call--Versailles. Aprês moi, le delugé.

Here is the entryway to my palace. I don't think the court architect gilded enough gold on my gate, however.

Don't mind the servants in the foreground. They're everywhere.

The Queen and myself.

Inside the palace we go...

Isn't my garden view charming?

Here we come to my favorite room, the Hall of Mirrors. As the name would suggest, there are lots of mirrors, and the reflection of light (and me) is the goal.

Hello, all. As it turns out, the Sun King - who began this post several days ago - has little taste for blogging. In the interest of hammering out posts for, frankly, a few more countries in a timely fashion, I will be picking up where Wilhelm left off ....

I love all things Marie Antoinette, so I was very excited to see the famous Queen's bedroom, where she gave birth to all of her children publicly. That sounds fun.

We made our way through a few more ridiculously beautiful rooms to finally reach the famous gardens of Versailles. The pictures do not even do it justice; they are truly a work of art and certainly continue to be a labor of love.

To say that the grounds are "extensive" would be an understatement. They seem endless. As we got further from the chateau to the end of this garden, we saw that it merely overlooked a vast tract of land on which a long, manmade lake sat, bordered by symmetrically planted forests on either side.

What we haven't mentioned is that it was hotter than blazes in Versailles that day; it had to be close to eighty degrees, which means I developed a really attractive heat rash. Should've borrowed one of Marie's parasols. We stopped by the lake for a quick refresher before striking out for our ultimate goals: the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon farther into the grounds.

It just keeps going and going ....

We finally made it to our first stop, the Grand Trianon, Louis XIV's personal retreat and more "casual" residence.

Obsessed with this chair! Actually obsessed. This is why there are so many guards around; this would be easy to carry...

The Grand Trianon does not want for pretty gardens, either.

My favorite room! All yellow!!

We next made our way to the Petit Trianon, originally built by Louis XV for his mistress, but later gifted to Marie Antoinette by Louis XVI as a means for her to escape the stresses of the royal court. This was by the far the area of Versailles I was most excited to see, so naturally, our camera died a quick death from our snap happy ways about eight pictures in. I almost cried.

Although the quality is not pristine, at least we had Will's iPhone to snap some more interior shots and more importantly, of the grounds without containing a beautiful pavilion and the delusional hamlet Marie Antoinette created for her amusement. Have to love her.

After that incredibly long day, all that walking in all that heat, all we could muster the energy for that evening was making fun of various products in a French grocery store. Yep, that's us.

We don't consider Brie wheels the size of your head to be "petit."