Zut alors! I don’t quite know what to think about NPR’s report that the French are converting a dilapidated building at Versailles into a luxury hotel. For paying guests. For through-the-nose paying guests, one presumes.
When I say “Versailles”, I mean the actual palace grounds, not the nearby town. You’ll be able to mange tes gâteaux in the reflection of the Grande Galerie des Glaces.
It’s sad that a truly historical monument is being commercialized in this way, even if we’re not talking Holiday Inn Express. Also, I’m a little surprised that the French government can’t cough up $7M to restore the structure without this venture. You’d think they could shake that amount out from behind sofa cushions in Provence.
I suppose it’s not the worst thing to happen at Versailles. That honor belongs to an event in January 1871, when the King of Prussia was proclaimed Kaiser Wilhelm I of a German empire created on the defeat of the French emperor at Sedan the previous year. Bismarck, the architect of German unification and empire really knew how to stick it to the French.
It’ll be interesting to follow the renovation, and; see if they make their deadline of opening next January. This being France, I’m sure there will be many strikes between now and then, and we all know how scope creep affects software and construction projects.
C'est la vie.
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