Places to visit while taking a break (top 10):
- Versailles:
The Palace of Versailles, Château de Versailles, or simply Versailles is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France.
When the château was built, Versailles was a small village dating from the 11th century; today, however, it is a wealthy suburb of Paris, 20 kilometres (12 miles) southwest of the centre of the French capital (point zero at square in front of Notre Dame). Versailles was the seat of political power in the Kingdom of France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved the royal court from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789, within three months after the beginning of the French Revolution. Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime.
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Museum of the History of France
In the 19th century the "Museum of the History of France" was founded in Versailles, at the behest of Louis-Philippe I, who ascended to the throne in 1830. The entire second floor (premier étage) of the aile du midi (south wing) of the palace was transformed into the Galerie des Batailles to house the newly created collection of paintings and sculptures depicting milestones battles of French history. The collections display painted, sculpted, drawn and engraved images illustrating events or personalities of the history of France since its inception. The museum occupies the lateral wings of the Palace. Most of the paintings date back to the 19th century and have been created specially for the museum by major painters of the time such as Delacroix, Horace Vernet or François Gérard but there are also much older artworks which retrace French History. Notably the museum displays works by Philippe de Champaigne, Pierre Mignard, Laurent de La Hyre, Charles Le Brun, Adam Frans van der Meulen, Nicolas de Largillière, Hyacinthe Rigaud, Jean Antoine Houdon, Jean Marc Nattier, Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Hubert Robert, Thomas Lawrence, Jacques-Louis David, Antoine Jean Gros and also Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
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Follow us at the next article to get to know which other places you must see in Paris.
We leave you with a panoramic shot of the whole Palace with its magnificent gardens!
