How would like to have a group of folks around your bed in the morning to watch you get up and get dressed? Even more, how would you enjoy a different crowd of folks around  your bed when you undressed, went to bed and then watched you fall asleep?

But, can you even imagine this? How would you enjoy having a crowd of folks around your bed if you were giving birth to your children? How about delivering 19 children and inviting folks in for the birthing show every time.

Well, if you lived in the era of French King Louis XIII and his successors, this was common practice. Special guests were invited to the King’s and the Queen’s bedrooms to watch rising and going to bed. Same is true when the Queen birthed her children. 

It was said the Queen did not leave her bedroom much. Birthing 19 children, she didn’t have time to do anything else.

And, by the way, both the king and the queen have their own bedroom suites and each are about 1,000 square feet. (You certainly could get a good crowd to watch you rise and go to sleep.)

What started out as a small hunting lodge about 20 minutes from Paris became Versailles, one of the most visited historical sites in the world, according to an online overview.

Started by French King Louis XIII and then expanded by his son Louis XIV, Versailles gives a whole new meaning to opulent, which the dictionary says means ostentatiously rich and luxurious. Yes, Versailles is more than lavish.

We visited there this morning by taking a train from near our hotel for a 20 minute ride outside of Paris to the village of Versailles. Versailles, the town, has about 85,000 residents residing on a little over 6,000 acres.

Versailles the palace, which contains 2,300 rooms, rests on a little over 2,000 acres, but, of course that includes the massive gardens that surround the palace. The palace has 60 staircases, 1,200 fireplaces and more than 5,000 pieces of furniture.

Perhaps the best known part of Versailles is the “hall of mirrors.” It’s pretty impressive. According to our prerecorded audio guide, what became the hall of mirrors was a portico overlooking the vast gardens. But apparently it caught a lot of bad weather, so it was enclosed on one side with windows and the interior wall with mirrors from top to bottom. 

We saw enough statues, most of which were carved from limestone, alabaster and marble to build a pretty large mountain. We didn’t even see the 824 statues in the gardens. (It cost more to visit the gardens and, well, we just weren’t that interested in them. (Please don’t tell the king and queen’s heirs.)

Quite a few paintings hang on the walls throughout the palace. Some larger than the largest rooms in my house. The artists had to use a scaffold of some sort to paint such big paintings.

Hope you are sitting down for this last fact. It is estimated that the cost today to build King Louis palace would approach from $2 billion to $300 billion dollars. Naturally, most of the money to finance the palace came through taxing the peasants. (Bet they never were invited to watch the king or queen go to bed.)

The French Revolution solved many of the ridiculous expenses of the day. King Louis never said, “Let’s make living less expensive.”

Following our visit to the Palace, we had lunch in a very nice outside restaurant in the village of Versailles. We both had chicken breasts covered with gravy and mushrooms, very tasty, followed by a “chocolate lava cake, which also was delicious.

We left Versailles and decided to take a cruise on the Seine River. (Glad I didn’t fall in because I would have been in seine).  The tour was interesting although our English translator had a heavier French accent than I have a Southern accent and we didn’t catch a lot of what she told us. 

One thing that surprised me was the number of house boats—big, long houseboats—that are moored along the river.

Rick and Karen standing in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles and in the bottom photo Karen stands in the outside court to the entrance to the palace. There is much more of the palace in front of her than behind her in this photo.