Day 2 * Sunday 3/7 * Versailles *

On our second day in Paris and after a relaxing Turkish bath we are going to be traveling in the RER to Versailles, the essence of Louis XIV. My expectations are to connect and walk the same rooms that he did 400 years ago. I can wait. I read that this king was so charming and special that when he got older and start loosing his hair he started to wear a white hair wig, and everyone else liked and did so. That it were the wig that George Washington and so many after him have the custom of wearing a white wig. I guess his successor were not as charming and powerful as Louis XIV, the Sun King as soon after the French Revolution changed everything...


A bit of history from chateauversailles.fr

Louis XIV

THE SUN KING (1638-1715)

The “Grand Century” of Louis XIV was marked by the image of an absolute Monarch and a powerful State. Installed in his royal functions at a very young age, and educated by Cardinal Mazarin, the Sun King built the foundations of absolutism around his own person. In 1682, he moved with his Court to the Château de Versailles, a palace that was a better symbol of his power and his influence in Europe.

Known as “Louis-Dieudonné”, Louis XIV was born in 1638 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Crowned king at the age of 5 on the death of his father Louis XIII, the young sovereign received from his mother, Anne of Austria, and from Cardinal Mazarin, his godfather, a complete education. Mazarin was officially in charge of introducing him to politics. His mother ruled as Regent; it was the time of the Fronde (1648-1653), the rebellion of the upper nobility and the people of Paris against the monarch. The young Louis felt humiliated by the arrogance of these nobles and threatened in his capital: he would remember this.

The royal family
In 1660, Louis XIV married his first cousin Maria Theresa of Austria, the Spanish Infanta, in Saint-Jean-de-Luz. Their union reinforced the reconciliation between France and Spain. The King and the Queen had six children. Only one survived, Louis de France. In 1663, the King secretly married Madame de Maintenon who succeeded his first ‘favourites’, Mademoiselle de La Vallière and Madame de Montespan, with whom he had several legitimate descendents.

A King with a passionate interest in the arts
The king was interested in a great variety of subjects and excelled in many fields. His contemporaries gave him credit as a good musician (he played the guitar), an excellent dancer and organiser of ballets, and a brilliant rider. He loved hunting, outings, fencing, putting on shows, and playing parlour games, billiards in particular. He surrounded himself with good judgement with the best artists of the period, including Molière, Lully and Racine. In the Château de Versailles, he had the Court playwright stage comedies, while the musician Jean-Baptiste Lully put on his operas and organised brilliant festivities.

A MONARCH BY DIVINE LAW

Louis XIV chose the sun for his emblem. The sun was Apollo, god of Peace and the Arts; it was also the heavenly body giving life to all things, the embodiment of regularity, which rises and sets each day. Like the Sun God, Louis XIV, the warrior hero, brought peace to his people; he protected the arts and dispensed all the graces. Through the regularity of his work, his public levers and couchers (morning rising and evening retiring ceremonies), he insisted on the resemblance, carved in stone: the decor of Versailles was filled with the depictions and attributes of the god (laurels, lyre, tripod) on all the royal portraits and emblems.

The absolutist regime
The monarch resided in the central part of the Château, on the first floor where three vast apartments were reserved to him. He impose his Etiquette on the Court, the rules of precedence to which the nobility had to submit. From Versailles, Louis XIV ruled a centralised and absolutist State which was built around his person. With Colbert, he directed the administrative and financial reorganisation of the kingdom, as well as the development of trade and industry. With Louvois, he reformed the army and accumulated military successes. Monarch by divine right, the king was the representative of God on earth. During his coronation, he committed himself to defending the Catholic faith. To fulfil his vow and preserve the kingdom’s religious unity, he led the struggle against the Jansenists of Port-Royal and the persecutions against the Protestants. The forced conversions and the emigration of two hundred thousand Protestants led him to cancel the edict of tolerance: this was the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1785.

Weakened by 72 years of rule, Louis XIV died on 1 September 1715. He was buried in the Basilica of Saint-Denis and bequeathed the throne to his great-grandson Louis XV, then aged 5 years old. He remains the man of the “Grand Century”, symbol of the pomp and ceremony of Versailles and the influence of France.

Hamman

Arrival day in Paris - Hammam de la Mosquée de Paris- Saturday 3/6

We plan on our first day in Paris.

Knowing that jet lag most likely will hit us, and I learned from previous experiences that if you take a nap that will kill your vacation, it is better to stay awake until at least 9 or 10 pm and start a Sunday fresh and in tune with the new time zone. So our plans for that first day are to go to the Turkish Baths an Oasis in the middle of Paris

Hammam de la Mosquée de Paris

Here we'll be rejuvenated in the Turkish baths on the grounds of the Paris Mosque, built in recognition of the the North African soldiers who enlisted with the French during World War I. The steam baths are meant to be a mental and physical escape from the natural world, and indeed they are. You may also enjoy some tea and snacks from the restaurant on-site. It's altogether a bit of an Oasis from the rest of Paris.

So, at the end of the winter we are planning on taking our bathing suits. 

Metro: Place Monge. The somewhat hidden Hammam entrance is behind the pastry counter in the mosque's charming courtyard café. 

Men and Women have separate hammam days: for women, Mon, Wed, Thurs and Sat 10 am—9 pm, Fri 2 pm—9 pm; for men, Tues 2—9 pm and Sun 10—9 pm. 

We happened to get there on Saturday so, it will be perfect. I will keep you posted...

Paris, city of light, city of love...

Paris, city of light, city of love... 

I have a long overdue date with this beautiful city. A few years back I was planning a trip with a dear friend and before we were able to go she past away and I never thought about going after that. I have the misconception that I don't like big cities and after some research I realized that Paris is not that big. I also told myself over and over that I was unable to understand French, even though I always had contact with the language with many dear people in my life. So I think I overcome all my own barriers and I decided that I was going and that I was to learn French. I went to the library and took a couple of courses and I am surprised how easy this language is to me. Is not a foreign language at all. As I am fluent in English and Spanish, it is a matter of awaken a listening comprehension and just try to speak with my best French accent and that guttural sound that I learned from my Dutch lessons.

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