VERSAILLES-LAND

Because of a growing number of flashy leisure-park like events calculated to draw a maximum number of tourists to the Château de Versailles coupled with increased visitors' amenities like rental golf carts and more and more souvenir shops, the historic domaine has become to be mockingly called in certain circles, Versailles-land. Add to that the controversy of dismantling the 19th century royal grille installed by Louis-Philippe in order to reconstitute the original baroque grille that had been removed by Louis XV, and you've got a long-lasting and good old-fashioned flap, or what the French call a polémique.


I'm not certain who coined the term Versailles-land, but it was used in 2007 in an article appearing in La Tribune de l'Art. 

iPhone photo by Ian Byrd

©2012 P.B. Lecron

NYMPHE AUX PERLES

On a perfectly calm day still water mirrors clouds and bare trees in a reflecting pool in gardens of the Château de Versailles. 

©2011 P.B. Lecron

HERE COMES THE SUN

His nibs, Kitty Quatorze


Because certain caretakers live on the grounds of the Château de Versailles with their families and pets, visitors will sometimes cross paths in the parc with a resident cat. That's no surprise considering first, that the lodgings scattered around the domaine are as old as the château and undoubtedly need mousers; and second, that cats will be cats.

I didn't have my camera the day I saw a mother cat and her pre-ado kittens stroll along the hornbeam hedges of the Allée Royale, but I did get these shots when taking photos to accompany a story I was working on for France Today. My subject was supposed to be La Flottille, a small Parisian-style restaurant on the banks of the Sun King's Grand Canal, but a photogenic royal inhabitant stole the scene.

Text & photos ©2010 P.B.Lecron

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