Versailles Part 1: The Village

Be prepared for a Versailles-extravaganza...we spent nearly 5 hours walking around today, and we plan to go back tomorrow night, so I will break this up into several posts.  Paris City Walks has two cards with walks in Versailles, one for the gardens and one for the area of town surrounding the château.  We started with the town walk, turning left out of the train station, then turning right on Rue des Tournelles, where we stopped in at the Cathedrale Saint-Louis de Versailles, dedicated in the 1750's.

The church had a bright, but rather austere, interior.

Although it was noon on a Friday, the square near the church was pretty empty...perhaps everyone was already at the Versailles château.

Our next stop was the underwhelming Potager du Roi, which is the vegetable garden of the king, just near the Versailles palace on Rue du Marechal Joffre.  It is only open weekends, so I took a few photos through the gates.  These are pear trees that have been trained into an arbor.

Of course the garden does stretch back a ways, so maybe there is more to see further inside.

There were some very cute shops and pretty facades along the walk, but definitely no crowds.  My impression is that, other than the château, this is a kind of sleepy little town.

Many of the avenues are lined with squared-off trees

Electrical box trompe l'oeil to look like a fountain

The dome behind this modern shopping plaza belongs to the palace stables

This shady walkway leads to the château, but we aren't going there yet; there is more to see.

Okay, you can have a glimpse, but that is all for now.  The rather ugly rusty "horseshoe" sculpture by Bernar Venet (it's one of 7 located throughout the palace gardens) is only temporary.

We walked toward the palace, but turned right on the Avenue Rockefeller, looking in to see if the Carriage Museum (Musée de Carosses) was open, but that too is only open on the weekend.  Instead we found that the enormous courtyard enclosed by the stables has been cleverly modernized into a parking lot.

But there are still traces of its original purpose as a stable, such as these horses above this doorway.

There were a few people eating lunch in the Place Hoche, dedicated to a French Revolutionary-era General, who was born in Versailles.  In the distance you can make out the Église Notre-Dame, built in the 1680's.

The accurate clock on the facade of Notre Dame.  Is it one o'clock already?  We haven't even arrived at the château yet!

Just around the corner, on the Blvd. de la Reine, is the Musée Lambinet featuring decorative arts.  And strike three -- it is open every day of the week except Fridays.  It's pretty to look at, though.

But we were lucky enough to catch the tail end of the Marché Notre Dame, a market held on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the Place du Marché Notre Dame.  These spices smelled heavenly.

Most of the other vendors were packing up...

...but this rotisserie stand was still open for business, selling whole roast chickens.

Turning right onto the Avenue de St.-Cloud, we walked along numerous restaurants waiting to cater to the hungry tourist crowds coming from or going to the palace.

Whew!  And then we arrived at the motorcoach parking for the château and prepared to enter the gardens to continue our walk.  One word of advice if you are traveling on a minibus tour...you might want to think twice about using bogusz transport.