Versailles!!!!
My understanding of history is superficial at best. It seemed to me that in French classes I'd heard that Louis XIV built Versalles out of competitiveness after he'd seen his finance minister Fouquet's Estate with a magnificent gardens, Vaux-le-Vicomte. Perhaps the machinations of Colbert to bring about Fouquet's downfall were more a source of this inaccuracy (https://vaux-le-vicomte.com/decouvrir/lhistoire/nicolas-fouquet/)... My Paris family contact, well-read in French history, said the move of Louis XIV from Paris to Versailles was first a matter of security after a revolt, "La Fronde", to get out of Paris, out of the Louvre--and Louis XIV had fond childhood memories spending time at the Versailles hunting Lodge (oldest part of the current palace) of his father Louis XIII.
From the time Louis XIV moved there until his death in 1715, the entire place was a construction site with marble dust and scaffolding, carpenters, painters everywhere, not finished in his lifetime. In order to consolidate his power, he required his 2,000 courtiers to live there with him at least part of the year. So much more history and renovations, embellishments occurred, and extensive gardens of such magnitude and intimacy alike. The gardens and vistas enchanted me than the hyperbolic achievements of the structure and gorgeously decorated and furnished interiors. Here is one of the many many images of Le Roi-Soleil:
The crowds moving along the linearly-connected rooms of the palace were stacked tight like spring asparagus in the grocery, so I wowed at all the incredible art work linking royalty to Roman gods and hurried outside to wander the gardens. Enjoy some of what I saw: The King's garden:
Typical "walls" of many outdoor living rooms:
Incredibly towering allées, like this one of plane trees:
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