France, Paris XII. – Versailles, Place of French Pride I

The city of Versailles was for a long time the capital of French kingdom. So we did not hesitate for a minute and went about 17 kilometers from the center Paris to outskirts. Immediately after entering the city most of us navigate the directional signs to the city's biggest attraction - the Chateau de Versailles.

Surrounding roads were lined by houses, and all sorts of shops or administrative centers. Everything in the French architectural elegance . To this day, this city is seeing its national importance, underlining the fact that it is one of the most luxurious, most advanced and most expensive region of France. Flanked by important administrative and judicial authorities. The city was founded in the early 17th century, and its history is closely connected with the chateau. In addition to transport by car or bus connection is secure suburban railways, which we did not use, but it's definitely the best and fastest way to get here. Crossing the street in this city we surprisingly did not last long.

A chateau worth waiting...

First, literally a shock we experienced at the parking lot. It's about largest parking lot we've ever seen. It is covered with typical white "castle" gravel. Even in some places, we feel that we are rather at large bus station than at the parking lot. Nevertheless, the French had really done their homework with parking.

After about two minutes walk from the car parking we had an indescribable panorama of the front of the castle grounds, where from afar reflect the rich golden castle fence with the central part of the castle in the background. Sides consisted of chateau wings and the chateau chapel, or rather the church, also dominated the area. And around here, we got a shock number two. It was realization that about 5000 people located at this site as well as we wanted to go inside and admire the beauty of the chateau. Suddenly we heard the whistling of chateau employees who in a sophisticated way tried to reorganize disorganized cluster of people to lines at a direction to a modern entrance building of the chateau. The third shock for us was the realization that the line we were standing in was a line only to buy a ticket. Then, if you want an electronic guide, which is included in the entrance fee, you have to stand in a line to get that inside chateau. Fortunately, there were more of us, and so part of our group went to buy tickets, while we honestly stood in our line.

Despite the huge number of people have purchased tickets fairly quickly (about 30 min.). When we stood in line for an hour and thought that we already stood before the gateway , suddenly the line turned to the front bottom of the "square". So we stood there for another hour and a half until we gradually worked our way to literally longed police checkpoint at the entrance to the chateau. In the queue for an electronic guide, we decided to not wait and we went to explore the castle on your own.

And what exactly what we saw and experienced inside we will reveal next week.

Text and photo: Oskár Mažgút