Châteaux et chalets

"Châteaux" means castle in French!  And "Chalet" means cottage.

 

We went to France!  When we got there we went to our hotel and they assigned us our chalet - and we thought it was huge!  Because it has two floors and a big garden area.

 

 

 You walk in to the main floor where there is a living/dining room and a kitchen.

 

 

Then you walk up the stairs and there are two bedrooms.  Here is my parents' room.

 

 

Here is the kid's room.

 

 

Here is the garden area.  We even have a life-size Monet standing in our garden.

 

 

 

 

This is our chalet.  It is the white one with red brick trim.

 

 

And our duck pond.

 

 

We thought our house was pretty big until we saw King Louie's.

 

Welcome to Versailles!  Versailles is a Chateaux. 

 

 

First of all, notice the golden gate...and the golden...everything.

 

 

 

 

Here is the garden (well, all of it that fits inside the camera from this angle.  There is more....just a little bigger than our duck pond at the hotel.)

 

 

Here is one wing of the building.

 

 

Look down the line of trees.  You will find more gardens.

 

 

More gardens.

 

 

  And perfectly symmetrically cut trees....

 

 

This is the "Petit Trianon" (The "SMALL" little vacation castle on the other side of the gardens...that took us half an hour - no exaggeration - to speed walk to....it was a little chilly, so we were definitely speed walking.)

 

 

In fact, when we arrived, we had chocolat chaud (hot chocolate) and macarons (really yummy French cookies)!

 

 

 So yummy, as illustrated by Kieran.

 

 

As we kept on walking beyond the gardens (yes, there is more) we reached Queen Marie Antoinette's "Hamlet."  It was the Queen's little "play" area where she pretended she was a peasant and played with perfumed sheep.

 

 

 

It might be make of gingerbread and candy canes...but it's a whole village all set up for pretend farming.

 

 

Here is a little gazebo building randomly out in the middle of the gardens.  Inside it had marble floors and a chandelier. 

 

 

And while we were there, we discovered a new species of animal!  It's the "lady-ger" - half lady, half tiger. "It's pretty much my favorite animal."

 

 

That, of course, and the Ly-man (half lion, half man...."bred for it's wisdom and magic...")

 

 

 

As we speed walked back up to the Chateaux, we were able to watch the many fountains throughout the gardens.  Here is Apollo driving his chariot.

 

 

 

 

Here is Bacchus, the grape dude.

 

 

This is some fountain that I do not know anything about.

 

 

Here is Neptune, the God of the sea.

 

 

 

Here is the perfectly cut grass in a curlie-cue formation.

 

 

More fountains and oddly shaped bushes.

 

 

 

Some vomiting fountain dude.

 

 

Naked lady fountain...

 

 

  Heads?

 

 

More perfectly cut grass with a big fountain in the middle.

 

 

Daffodils in the perfectly cut grass....yes still in curlie-cue.   (Poor gardener!)

 

 

Here is my Mom.  She likes daffodils.

 

 

 

More curlie-cue perfectly cut grass.

 

 

We finally made it back up to the Chateaux, and decided we should probably go inside and check it out.

 

 

 

 

Inside it was pretty much all gold.  They had their own chapel.  (Guess you would never be late to church...unless of course you were out wandering in the acres and acres of gardens...or you had to come from another wing of the building.  Yes, it was that big!)

 

 

This is the hall of mirrors.  It's a bunch of mirrors in a hall.  Yeah!  Also a lot of gold and chandeliers.

 

 

 

Here is the Queen's bedroom.  It has some funky wallpaper.  Her bed was super short. 

 

 

This whole hallway was completely dedicated to live-size paintings of famous battles and war.  How comforting!  Just what I want to walk though on my way to breakfast!

 

 

 

 

Check out the details on this handle!

 

 

 

Sooo. where would you rather live?  The Chateax or the chalet?  I'll stay here until they kick all the tourists out for the night, but then it's back to our chalet for me.