Her hameau de la reine (or "hamlet of the queen"), as it's called, is an adorable part of the park that she had constructed for her own personal pleasure. She already had the Petit Trianon for her own private use, but I guess when you're French royalty you can really do whatever the heck you want. So, to further remove herself from the boring court life of Louis XVI, she ordered that a fake country village be built so that she and her inner circle of friends could pretend they were poor peasants. I know that Marie may have never said "Let them eat cake!" ...but I guess she was still a pretty arrogant psycho.
Nevertheless, after walking throughout the hameau, I really COULD see the appeal of wanting to live somewhere like that. I felt like Belle from Beauty and the Beast! (No, I did not hum that opening song from the movie where Belle's walking through town...... *ahem*....) It seemed to be an idealized version of a typical French country home. The thatched rooves and quaint pathways on the exterior were very charming, but looking through the windows, we could see that Marie Antoinette still had very high standards for her quality of living. The interiors of all the buildings are decked out in marble and other decorations, but the exteriors give the appearance of simplicity.
We wandered through the farmland some more and came across the Petit Trianon, which we decided to look at later. By that point, we had walked the equivalent of several miles -- everything in Versailles seems close but is actually very spread out! After walking another 30 minutes throughout some tree-lined boulevards within the forest, we finally made our way out.
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