点评:You probably should visit Versailles once in your life but if you never did it wouldn’t really matter.
What you will see is a ridiculous exercise in 18th and 17th century bling, in other words, room after room stuffed with old carpets, overly ornate furniture, gold, marble and huge paintings of bewigged monarchs and aristocrats. It seems utterly pointless, the whole contrivance a testament to a certain class’s obsession with status. As a reason to help you understand the inevitability of the French Revolution of 1789, it is helpful but as a joyful experience, not particularly. If you have visited old castles or stately homes before it is just more of the same - much more.
The gardens are similarly unedifying. They are, unsurprisingly, French in style. What that means is that you get vast acreages of gravel, low box hedges laid out in arabesques and barely a flower to be seen. Plants are frequently confined to wooden boxes so that the whole thing looks like an excessively formal garden centre. If you want to see a truly spectacular garden you are in the wrong country - the UK is where you should be.
What of the famous fountains? In truth, something of a disappointment. They are each hundreds of metres from each other so that you experience them individually, not as a combined effect. Quite often they aren’t even turned on.
There is a good café with very slow service, rather inadequate and infrequent toilets for the hoards of tourists. So as an experience it’s a good thing to tick off but if your time in Paris is limited, don’t waste a day going to Versailles. Paris itself is much more fun.
翻译:你这辈子或许应该去一次凡尔赛宫,但就算不去也没什么大不了的。
你将会看到的是一场18世纪与17世纪奢华风潮的夸张展示——一间又一间房间里堆满了老式地毯、过度雕饰的家具、黄金、大理石,还有大量描绘着戴假发的君主与贵族的巨大画作。这一切看起来毫无意义,整个设计不过是某个阶层对地位与身份极度痴迷的明证罢了。作为帮助你理解1789年法国大革命必然性的资料,这本书倒是有一定帮助;但要说它是一种愉悦的体验,则谈不上了。如果你曾经参观过古老的城堡或宏伟的庄园,那么这里也不过是类似景色的重复——而且程度更甚。
园景也同样乏善可陈。不出所料,它们具有法国风格。也就是说,你会看到大片的碎石地、以繁复图案排列的低矮黄杨树篱,却几乎看不到一朵花。植物通常被种植在木制花箱中,整个景象看上去就像一个过于规格化的园艺中心。如果你想欣赏真正壮观的花园,那可来错地方了——英国才是你应该去的地方。
至于那些著名的喷泉呢?说实话,有些令人失望。这些喷泉彼此相距数百米之远,因此你只能单独观赏每一座喷泉,而无法体验它们共同营造出的整体效果。而且它们经常甚至根本不会开启。
那里有一家不错的咖啡馆,不过服务速度极其缓慢。对于数量众多的游客来说,那里的厕所实在不够用且分布稀少。因此,去凡尔赛宫可以算作一次值得体验的经历;不过,如果你在巴黎的停留时间有限,那就别浪费一天时间去那里了——巴黎本身更有趣得多。