Versailles - Jardins et Parc (The Garden)

From the Hall of Mirrors you can join this Adonis and take a great view of the Garden of Versailles. Adonis is an annually-renewed, ever-youthful vegetation god, a life-death-rebirth deity whose nature is tied to the calendar.

When entering the Garden, you see that the Palace is guarded by many other beautiful sculptures.

and the facade from the "Basin et Parterre de Latone" looks like this

The Hall of Mirrors covers the fifteen central windows in the main western facade of the palace.

From the southernmost corner of the palace (the Salon of Peace) the view of the Garden look like this, and we started on a walking tour towards "Grand Trianon" and "Domaine de Marie-Antoinette" which is behind the forest in the horizon. (a long walk).

The "Green Carpet" and the "Grand Canal" which you see on the photo above are the main westward lines of the park, and from the castle you have to "climb" down several staircases from one level to the other

At the end of "Tapis vert" (green carpet) the Apollo basin and fountain covered in spring green leaves is fantastic.

We decided to walk through the "labyrinth" and must admit that it was a wrong choice. The green "walls" with limited sign showing directions, made me make wrong choices which resulted in a longer stroll than intended. However, we found the Grove of Dauphine with her beauty somewhere in there.

Entering the "Petit Trianon" and Domain de Marie-Antoinette this "Temple de Amour" (Gazebo) was the only object from her garden. The interior of the domain will be covered in a later blogpost.

The alley from the "Grand Trianon" where Napoleon lived (far away) and back to the castle also shows the huge area that the gardener André Le Nôtre designed for Louis XIV. and when looking to the next photo I am happy not having to cut the hedges by hand.

The alley from Grand Trianon ends up in the gate of Neptune and the spectacular sculpture in Neptune´s Basin 

From here it is a short walk back to the castle where we from the northernmost window in the castle (the War Room) you can see that there are other possible ways than walking around the area.

As an end to this garden tour I give you a small taste of the fantastic paintings in the castles that will be presented in my next blogpost. This image has a clear footnote or title:

"Le Roy Gouverne Par Lvi Meme" ( The king governs by himself) He and he alone has the Power.