Top 10 Most Amazing Royal Palaces In The World
4. Palace Of Versailles, France
It is the most popular palace in France, located in Southwest region of Paris. It was built in 1624 by King Louis XIII as a hunting lodge. In 1682 king Louis XIV expanded it into a largest palace in the country, used as permanent residence.
Palace of Versailles features 700 rooms, 1200 fireplaces and 60 staircases. The huge garden of this palace covers an area of 2000 acres, contains 1400 fountains and mile long canal. The kings of France used this place as official residence until 1789.
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, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) southwest of the centre of the French capital. 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.
First built by Louis XIII in 1623, as a hunting lodge of brick and stone, the edifice was enlarged into a royal palace by Louis XIV. The first phase of the expansion was designed and supervised by the architect Louis Le Vau. It culminated in the addition of three new wings of stone, which surrounded Louis XIII’s original building on the north, south, and west. After Le Vau’s death in 1670, the work was taken over and completed by his assistant, François d’Orbay. Charles Le Brun designed and supervised the elaborate interior decoration, and André Le Nôtre landscaped the extensive Gardens of Versailles. Le Brun and Le Nôtre collaborated on the numerous fountains, and Le Brun supervised the design and installation of countless statues.