Tags
food, gardens, La Cuisine Paris, Paris, Potager du Roi, travel, Versailles
You wouldn’t think visiting a vegetable garden would be a highlight of a trip to Paris, but when that garden was created for the King of France…well, you get the idea. Last fall, while I was in Paris, I signed up for a day trip tour to Versailles via the cooking school, La Cuisine Paris. The tour focused on the Potager du Roi or the kitchen garden of King Louis XIV. This is, of course, no ordinary “kitchen garden.” Located just southwest of the Palace of Versailles in the old part of town, this grand, walled garden measures an impressive nine hectares (about 22 acres) filled with a multitude of fruits, vegetables, herbs, trees, and flowers.
Louis XIV commissioned his chief gardener, Jean-Baptiste La Quintinie, to create a garden large enough to supply plenty of fruits and vegetables for the elaborate meals required for court entertaining, in addition to satisfying the king’s enormous appetite. The garden was developed between 1678 and 1683 and remains in production today.
Our group started the day early, meeting at the fountain at Place St. Michel. It was a lovely morning, albeit a bit chilly, to begin our adventure. The tour cost covered a round trip train ticket, admission to the garden, lunch, and admission to the Palace of Versailles. Totally worth every centime! If I remember correctly, we had 10 people in our group, plus Karin, our excellent tour guide from La Cuisine Paris.
After departing the St. Michel Metro station via the RER C line, we arrived at the Gare Versailles Rive Gauche—it’s the end of the line, so you can’t miss your stop. Karin herded us across the street to the Starbucks for a pre-tour restroom and coffee break—it’s always wise to take advantage of good restroom opportunities (the one at the Potager itself was…interesting, but clean!). From there, it was only about a five-minute walk to the palace itself. We headed up to the Avenue de Paris, then turned left. A couple of large blocks later and the palace (the courtyard side) was right in front of us.
After pausing to take in the view, we headed left along the Avenue Rockefeller, then angled across the Avenue de Sceaux to the rue de Satory. At this point, we were in the heart of “vieux” (old) Versailles. And just a short while later, we arrived at the Potager du Roi at 10 rue du Maréchal-Joffre. Directly across the street is the majestic Cathédrale Saint-Louis, which is relatively new as far as French cathedrals go, dating to the mid-1700s.
The Potager du Roi is hidden behind a tall wall, so you really can’t get an idea of how massive the garden is until you’re inside. We entered through the gift shop/market. The garden is still a fully working concern and is used by students of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Paysage. Around 450 varieties of fruits and 400 varieties of vegetables, both of ancient and recent origin, are still cultivated there. When we arrived, a couple of locals were buying their daily produce at the little market stand in the gift shop. Just imagine buying vegetables grown on land first cultivated in the late 1600s and that served the kings and queens of France!
Tours are self-guided, so you can take your time wandering through the different sections of the garden. In the center is a simple reservoir and fountain, and a statue of La Quintinie greets you as you make your way down into the garden proper.
Karin led us through the key areas, explaining the history and development of the garden, including La Quintinie’s innovative methods for pruning and training fruit trees and cultivating vegetables out of season. La Quintinie had wanted to build the garden elsewhere because the land was marshy in this area. But Louis XIV wanted the garden close by the palace so he could take walks there. The king could visit through a special entrance—a large, wrought-iron, gold-tipped gate (la Grille du roi)—at the back of the garden next to the Pièce d’eau des Suisses (a lovely, manmade lake), and stroll along an elevated walkway or “King’s Walk.” It’s a great vantage point to take in the entire garden.
Today, you can stroll along the same pathways to view a diverse array of garden plots that surround that the central fountain. We saw tomatoes, peppers, greens, cabbage, lettuces, leeks, strawberries, herbs, as well as an insect “hotel.” There were plenty of flowers, both inside and outside of greenhouses, plus the more than 5,000 fruit trees—mainly apple, pear, and fig—pruned into specific shapes and espaliers (trees trained to grow flat against a wall or fence).
Really, it’s hard to put the full experience into words. The property is so immense and beautiful, from the crumbling stucco of the walls dividing the garden’s different zones to the perfectly landscaped herb garden to the rows and rows of espaliered fruit trees.
The Potager du Roi is not your typical tourist destination, but it offers an absolutely fascinating look at a lesser-known aspect of royal life in Versailles. I’ll write about the rest of the La Cuisine Paris tour in a separate post. That includes a trip to the Marché Notre-Dame and lunch in a local restaurant. Oh, and a look around a certain Chateau.
Photos by Judy L. Marchman