Until recently I’d cringe when visiting friends would ask me to take them to Versailles. Too crowded, too baroque, too empty of furniture, too bold and muddled at the same time. What did I care to know a dîner from a souper, a Louis XV leg from a Louis XVI, Mme de Maintenon from Madame de Pompadour, a petit lever from a grand? As Louis XVI wrote in his diary on July 14, 1789, the day the Bastille was stormed: Rien. Nothing. Nada.

I’m not sure when my transformation from dread of Versailles to curiosity occurred—while listening to our guide, while visiting the Little Theater, while strolling through the bucolic Hamlet, while having an enjoyable lunch at La Petite Venise in the garden of the chateau, while having tea and pastries at the Hotel Trianon Palace with a view of royal pastures, or after dinner in Paris when Lolly told me this was the best birthday she ever had—but by the end of the day I actually looked forward to returning again.

 

Of the constellation of formerly royal towns that now stand for genteel living in the western suburbs of Paris, Versailles naturally grabs the lion’s share of attention due to its chateau. But Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Versailles’s predecessor (along with the Louvre) as official residence of the Court of France, is the more likeable town for an afternoon stroll-about.