This summer my family and I flew to Paris, France and traveled to all the amazing places it had to offer. When we first arrived in Paris we visited the Palace of Versailles and it was my personal highlight.
Back in the early 1600s, France’s government was at an all time low. Many people hated the government and wanted to overthrow the monarchy. King Louis knew that living near the cities would be a death sentence, as the people hated him and the queen, so he built a huge palace for all the kings and royals to stay 15 miles outside of the main town.
During the 1600s no toilets were made, this meant that all royals in the palace would have had no place to go to the restroom which was very interesting to me. The palace also had a beautiful garden in the back that was well kept and even had many statues and water fountains around the palace.
During King Louis’s monarchy, he had a queen named Marie Antoinette who was known for saying, “Let them eat cake.” This is a reference to the people of France being too poor to make cake because the ingredients needed for making cake were very expensive. She was therefore known for being not so nice, but history is uncertain of if she was really that rude.
Next to the palace was a small town of about 10-20 people who had normal village lives and were farmers. Marie would occasionally sneak out of the palace and act like a villager that lived there. She was a farmer and never told anyone that she was the queen of France. Marie hated palace life; she always dreamed of shepherding animals and working in a small village.
The Palace of Versaille had so much history to offer, I thought it was the best part of the trip. Afterwards, we decided to travel to the countryside of Paris, where a famous artist had hundreds of paintings of the garden in his town.
Claude Monet’s garden was very beautiful and had millions of flowers to offer. The garden walking path wandered throughout the garden and eventually led us out to a moat that surrounded a patch of flowers and trees. It was truly unforgettable because some of the flower blossoms leaned in and out of the water, creating a beautiful picture. The garden stretched out in all directions with an almost unending carpet of flowers teaming with bees going about their daily activities.
The time we spent in France was amazing and I would recommend anyone to venture outside the city and explore all the amazing sites, as many big cities have amazing countrysides to offer!