Pictures of the most beautiful building in the world can hardly do justice to some of the most breathtaking structures on Earth.
The Palace of Versailles, or Versailles, is a royal Château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French, it is known as the Château de Versailles.
The Palace of Versailles was the principal royal residence of France from 1682, under Louis XIV, until the start of the French Revolution in 1789, under Louis XVI. It is in the department of Yvelines, near Île-de-France, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) southwest of the center of Paris.
A simple hunting lodging and later a small Château with a moat occupied the site until 1661, when the first work expanding the chateau into a palace was carried out for Louis XIV. In 1682, when the palace had become large enough, the king moved the entire royal court and the French government to Versailles.
They constructed some palace furniture at this time of solid silver, but they melted in 1689 much of it down to pay for the cost of war.
Subsequent rulers mostly carried out interior remodeling to meet the demands of changing taste, although Louis XV installed an opera house at the north end of the north wing for the wedding of the Dauphin and Marie Antoinette in 1770. The palace has also been a site of historical importance.
The Peace of Paris (1783) was signed at Versailles, the Proclamation of the German Empire occurred in the vaunted Hall of Mirrors, and they ended World War 1 in the palace with the Treaty of Versailles, among many other events.
The palace is now a historical monument and UNESCO World Heritage Site, notable especially for the ceremonial Hall of Mirrors, the jewel-like Royal Opera, and the royal apartments;
for the more intimate royal residences, the Grand Trianon and Petit Trianon located within the park; the small rustic Hameau (Hamlet) created for Marie Antoinette; and the vast gardens of Versailles with fountains, canals, and geometric flower beds and groves, laid out by Andre Le Notre.
The Palace was stripped of all its furnishings after the French Revolution, but many pieces have been returned and many of the palace rooms have been restored. In 2017 the Palace of Versailles received 7,700,000 visitors, making it the second-most visited monument in the Île-de-France region, just behind the Louvre and ahead of the Eiffel Tower.
When the Château was built, Versailles was a country village; today, however, it is a wealthy suburb of Paris, some 20 kilometers southwest of the French capital.
