Fireworks over Apollo Fountain in Versailles

Apollo Fountain in Versailles !
Originally uploaded by ФɹankБa [OFF]

Saturday, August 7, 2010 Day 38
On this day we caught a 5:00 p.m. train out to the village of Versailles, then walked to the Chateau de Versailles. It started to rain as we left the train station, but it was only a light mist, so Roger didn’t even get out his plastic rain poncho, although I did put on my water-resistant jacket. Roger was wearing his fashionable snap-brim hat which kept his head dry. As we approached the chateau, we were salmon swimming upstream – everybody else seemed to be leaving. We learned later that they close the garden at 5:30 on Saturday evening in preparation for the nighttime gala. When we entered the garden area, we could see only one line for a ticket booth, so we got into it. While Roger stood in line, I approached a staff member, who said that we could stand in the line, or come back at 8:30 and the same tickets would be on sale at about 4 booths with little or no waiting. No fools we, we took off for dinner!

The restaurant we chose had ample indoor seating – a necessity in the cool, wet evening. Roger had beef lasagna, I had salmon lasagna. Roger’s was quite good, mine a little less so, but good nevertheless. We shared 25cl of rosé wine. Dessert came with our meal, so Roger chose the apple tart Normande and I had something the name of which I do not recall, but which seemed highly touted on the menu. It turned out to be a piece of what we in the U.S. call French toast! It was a piece of bread dipped in milk and cinnamon and fried. It was served on a plate with a thin vanilla custard-type sauce and whipped cream.

We left the restaurant and went to the train station to buy our tickets back to Paris. The vending machine we tried to buy from at the beginning of our trip did not take debit or credit cards and we only had enough change to buy tickets out to the village. When we got off the train, hoards of visitors were clogging the station, including all the ticket booths and information booth, so we decided to postpone buying tickets at that time. But Roger didn’t want to wait until the last minute, so we took this time to get the. It was only a five-minute walk to the station, made a bit longer by our detour back to the restaurant for Roger to get the camera, his hat and our bag holding blanket and a water bottle that he left behind.

Then on to the big spectacle, which is the French term for a large gathering, whether a concert, art show or, in this case, the Versailles evening light and water show. The fountains at Versailles are usually turned off due, I think, to monetary constraints. But on Saturdays they are turned on, and on Saturday evenings there is a music and light show to accompany the fountains. It was truly delightful, despite the rain. When we arrived to purchase our tickets at 8:40 or so, a light rain was coming down and a number of spectators were huddled under the archway leading to the gardens. I slipped up the hood of my water-resistant jacket and Roger pulled out one of those thin rain ponchos, the kind that roll up into a package about the size of your fist. He put it on, put up the hood, then put his hat on over the hood. The upper formal gardens were open, so in we went. When we got to the Grand Perspective, however, we were not allowed to enter until 9:05. At 8:55 and again at 9:00, an announcement was made over the speakers that the gardens would open in 10 minutes, then 5, then finally the gardens opened and the music came on. The rain lightened a bit as we began to explore and ceased completely after 30-40 minutes. The spectacle was superb, with laser light shows at a couple of the Bosquets, or groves, and with a constant show at the large fountain at the bottom of the Grand Perspective called the Bassin d’Apollon. At first, my reaction was that the producers could learn a little something from the water-and-light show at The Bellagio in Vegas, but one of the shows in particular changed my mind. Overall it was a grand evening. There was 18th century music piped throughout the gardens which made the evening even grander. Down the middle of the Grand Perspective we noticed some black things protruding about a foot above the grass, but we didn’t pay much attention to them. Then, as we were walking along, they suddenly blasted a flash of fire in time to some of the music – they were propane torches used as part of the show. They were really impressive, both for the nifty touch to the light show and for the blast of heat they put out. If they had run them for about three consecutive minutes, we would all have been completely dried out from the rain!

Unfortunately we did not get good pictures of the night as our camera is inadequate for night photography, so I have some attached the photos of others from their Flickr sites. As well, here is a link to one whose work is copyrighted and which, as a result, would not link directly to my blog. Check this out:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/christin_k/3719009076/in/photostream/
This was a laser show in one of the gardens whereby there was a fog machine shooting fog into the air and it gave the eerie appearance of a reflection of green light on water, some 15 feet in the air. Fascinating!

The evening ended with about 20 minutes of fireworks over the Apollo Fountain at the bottom of the Grand Perspective. They were really grand – almost as spectacular as those on Bastille Day, but not quite. After the fireworks, we spectators moved en masse toward the exit and tour buses, private automobiles, a Paris city bus, or the train station. When we reached the train station, the lines were clogged because at least one of the gates was not working. So the security personnel simply opened a large walk-through gate and let in hoards of riders without checking tickets! We surged through with the rest of the crowd. The 11:50 departure was timed to allow almost all the spectators who wanted a train ride back to Paris to catch the train without rushing. Apparently every Saturday night they bring a long train out to Versailles to take the crowd back, because this train contained at least 10 cars, whereas the train we came out on had only five or six cars. I don’t know if authorities closed the gate after the bulk of the crowd had moved through or not, but our access through the gate meant that we had a free ride back to Paris, and could use our tickets elsewhere. Alas! I washed clothes the next morning and dried the shirts by hanging them in the window. I noticed something blocking the sunshine in Roger’s shirt pocket and discovered that I had washed the two tickets plus his tram access ticket (already used), so no free ride for us!