How Does An Anglophile Learn to Love France?

Before I start on this France journey, I think it's only fair to come clean. I'm an Anglophile. I've studied English history most of my life, and snap up historical fiction novels about Britain as soon as they hit the library shelves. You can imagine how wonderful it was to spend two weeks in England last summer, gazing at the locations I've imagined for all of these years. I called it "walking today where Anne Boleyn walked" to respectfully parody one of my favorite hymns. I got chills when I stood at the site of Anne's scaffold in the Tower yard, and I badgered my husband until we took the tour of Kensington Palace, which was not on our original itinerary. He pretended he did not know me when I took the photos of the Diana and Dodi shrine at Harrods. You get the picture.

I want to feel the same way about France, but I don't have the time in the next nine months to become fully immersed in French history. I know the basics, with Marie Antoinette and Napoleon coming immediately to mind. I want to read, read, read, and watch lots of movies about France and set in France.

I decided to start with a video about Versailles called Versailles: The Visit. Earlier in my life I would have wondered how any human being could actually think it was appropriate to cover walls, ceilings, floors, woodwork, and furniture in gold. It always seemed like it was the crazy behavior of Louis XIV, and that other people would also think it was crazy. That was before I visited the Hapsburg palaces in Austria. Unbelievable, but beautiful. Marie Antoinette was used to such ostentatious displays of wealth in her homes in Austria, but the Hapsburgs privately lived what they considered an informal lifestyle, primarily at Schoenbrunn Palace. That's what makes it even more interesting to visit Versailles where Louis XVI also "allowed" her to live "off campus" with her court in a much more informal dwelling.

Unfortunately, this video was so boring I almost fell asleep. It seems impossible to actually make Versailles boring, but this video did that. It gave an insider's view of Versailles which I guess I won't get to see when I visit, but it was very dry and certainly did not give me any flavor of court life in 18th century France. What it did tell me, however, is that when we actually get there, I will need a full day to explore the palace and all of the outbuildings and gardens. I am really looking forward to seeing the Palace, including the recently restored Hall of Mirrors, the Gardens, the Trianon, and Marie Antoinette's estate.

I'm reading French Milk in my free time, which is much lighter than Versailles: The Visit, and making my way through the Rick Steve's travel videos on France. More later on them. Bon voyage!