A portal to the Ancien RégimeWhat draws people to the Palace of Versailles like bugs to a golden light? Is it admiration for French royal history and 17th-century French art? Is it to satisfy a daydream of living in fantastical and exalted opulence? Or is there a darker, sardonic element to it? A macabre recognition that all these fineries could not save the king and queen from the blade during the French Revolution? I must admit, I felt a weird mix of all three when I entered the former residence of the House of Bourbon. I visited the Château de Versailles on a crisp winter’s day. Getting there from Paris was almost too easy. The city of Versailles is located less than twenty kilometres south-west from Paris by RER and the palace is only a short walk from the train station. Given its close proximity to the capital and global fame, the Palace of Versailles is obviously wildly popular all year around. As such, the First Rule of Popular Day Trips applies in full force: Drag yourself out of bed and get there as early to beat the crowds. A quick history rundown: The Palace of Versailles can be condensed into the story of three monarchs with the name Louis. Sort of. Originally, the royal palace was merely a hunting lodge for King Louis XIII in the early 17th-century. His son, King Louis XIV (also famously known as the Sun King) took a great liking to the site and began to significantly expand it, eventually making it his Court in 1683. It then remained this way up until the doomed reign of King Louis XVI—the last monarch to live in Versailles and the last King of France prior to the French Revolution of 1789-99.
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Musée du Louvre, a poemBeyond the glass pyramids in the navel of Paris Was a collection so colossal it truly did scare us. The Louvre: the biggest art museum on the planet! You couldn’t see it all in one day, even if you ran it. Originally, it was the palace of a lavish dynasty Till it was opened up by revolutionaries in 1793. A vault of masterpieces unlocked for crowds; To this very day, its prestige is up in the clouds. But I’ll say it right now – Mona Lisa’s overrated. Tourists rabble around her, crassly captivated, Ignoring the stunning art that shares her wing, Other grand works that also merit worshipping. I loved Jacques-Louis David’s dramatic stances, Delacroix’s motions, and Ingres’s erotic glances; I loved the sculpture garden, bathed in whiteness, And the Apollo Gallery in all its stupid glitziness. But after a while, the images seem to roll on repeat, Like ugly Christ Childs suckling Holy Mother’s teat, Medieval altarpieces displaying brutalised saints, Or creepy Flemish reptile people in oily paints. More military portraits. More tortured passions. Kitchen sink still lifes in all its Dutch fashions. Long halls of Biblical and historical extracts — Long as the list of Louvre’s ill-gotten artefacts. By the fifth hour, and with very little to eat, We began to feel art’s burden on our tiny feet. My friend turned and gave his main takeaway: “I’ve heard it’s much better—the Musee d’Orsay.” The Greeks got a glance. The Etruscans, a blur. I swear all these church icons are just to deter... We raced past old statues and so, so much more, Said hi to Venus de Milo, then bolted out the door. It was too much Louvre and just too much art;
It wafted past my head like an odourless fart. Thus, I resign myself to a lack of sophistication If only so my feet can regain some sensation. Malacca City — some lukewarm observationsMalacca. It is a city of over half a million people on the south-western coast of the Malay Peninsula. It is a major tourist attraction and its historic centre has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2008. It is a confluence of Malays, Tamils, Chinese, Peranakans, and other peoples. It is the story of the Portuguese seizing it from the Sultanate, the Dutch seizing it from Portuguese, the English taking control, and then union with the Malay States in the aftermath of the World War II. So much blood spilt for a place that is now a leisurely day trip from Kuala Lumpur... Despite the high levels of cushy and, quite frankly, tacky tourism in the city, oddities abound. The Tan Kim Seng Bridge that crosses the Malacca River, the nexus of the historical city, is a deafening cacophony of birds in the evening and an action painting of droppings... History can be found in unusual nooks. For instance, the mausoleum of Hang Jebat, a 15th-century local legendary warrior, can be found indignantly squeezed between an auto repair shop and a cookie store on a rarely explored side road. Meanwhile, the revolving panoramic tower of Malacca, the Taming Sari Tower, makes a warbling, extraterrestrial sound that resonates across much of the city... As for the famous Christ Church Malacca, it is prosaic in a style that only the Anglicans can pull off. Nice to sit in. Strangely, I was the only one inside despite the throngs of tourists milling outside the church in the heat. Nearby is the Stadthuys, a historical museum and former colonial Dutch city hall, which is believed to be the oldest surviving Dutch colonial building in Asia. It's now a bland, mildly passable museum which also has an odd room upstairs dedicated to China–Malaysia foreign relationship over the decades. Lots of photos of Mao. Lots of photos of Xi. Pictured below: the beautiful 16th-century hilltop ruins of Saint Paul's Church, with its chunky and imposing old Portuguese tombstones... The Melaka Straits Mosque, built on stilts to make it appear at times as though it is floating about the waves, makes for a great visit, but it's in a bad location. I wouldn't recommend walking there like I did (just take a taxi instead) — not because it felt unsafe, but because it felt lonely and dull. Vacant lots, tenantless buildings, and silent construction sites. There is also an unoccupied and half-completed faux-European shopping boulevard nearby, which is a hollow and dispiritingly kitschy thing to see. Malacca is ultimately a place of conflux. One can be walking behind some Indian tourists in a Chinese folk temple — partly distracted by the sight of Buddhist nuns across the road taking selfies — when the Islamic call to prayer starts blasting from around the corner... Now for some notes on Malacca food. To be honest, I didn't try a large variety, but I did manage to sample of few that caught my attention:
Finally, Malacca is synonymous with bombastic, fever-inducing bicycle rickshaws. Glum men pedalling middle-aged Chinese tourists around on flashing contraptions covered with plushy cartoon decorations, blasting "Gangnam Style", "Let It Go", or that cloying call-me-señorita song at painfully high volumes. They are a terror to behold.
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AuthorMing is an economist, traveller, and creative writer from Melbourne, Australia. He’s a nebulous collection of particles on the lookout for a good corner to sit with a book and a cup of coffee. Archives
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