By Dean Bilton, ABC reporter at Chateau de Versailles
Riders from the equestrian academy and their horses ride towards the Royal Gate of the Palace of Versailles before the Paris Olympics opening ceremony. Photo: HENRIQUE CAMPOS / AFP
Analysis - There's an episode of The Sopranos late in its run called "Cold Stones", in which Carmela Soprano and her friend Rosalie Aprile visit Paris.
Rosalie, whose life has been marred by horror and tragedy back home, escapes within the tourist delights of Paris. She eats, she shops, she courts young French men on motorbikes, and she has a wonderful time.
Carmela arrives prepared for the same experience, but instead is propelled into existential crisis at the sight of the city's golden statues, centuries-old architecture and artistic marvels.
- Read more: Listen to RNZ's Olympics podcast, Paris Essentials
- How do they get our horses to the Paris Olympics?
- Explainer: The equestrian case rocking the Olympics
Paris in its totality causes her to address her own insignificance. "We worry so much," she says, "sometimes it feels like that's all we do, but in the end it just gets washed away."
There's a reason Carmela's pseudo-intellectual breakthrough is set in Paris, as there is an undeniable weight of history everywhere you look here. The city is immaculately kept to further hone that feeling, making it easy to get lost in it all.
Perhaps some others have felt that way in Paris this week. If they have, there's a fair chance it happened when turning their back on the equestrian competition and instead taking in a view of Chateau de Versailles.
Nowhere at these Olympics is the scent of history more tangible than at this venue, a temporary construction upon one of the most significant pieces of land in Europe.
Danish rider Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour competes in the dressage event at the Chateau de Versailles during the Paris Games. Photo: JOHN MACDOUGALL / AFP
The stadium here in Versailles has been specifically designed to allow the palace to provide a backdrop for the television cameras, and only the Eiffel Tower Stadium can rival it in terms of spectacle. It is on TV, just as it is in person, completely remarkable.
The equestrian venue is positioned in the Etoile Royale esplanade west of the Grand Canal, at the very bottom of the property and some distance from the palace.
On this land, a humble hunting lodge which was built for King Louis XIII was turned into a wildly extravagant palace by his son, King Louis XIV. It became the home of the government and royal court in 1682 but remained a place for recreation and early versions of sport.
Jousting would have taken place at Versailles, until the practice was banned when King Henry II was struck in the face during competition in 1559 and died.
Carousels, a precursor to modern equestrian, was a favourite under Louis XIV's reign, though the French Revolution brought an abrupt end to festivities in the palace.
By 1789 it had already become a museum, and remains so to this day.
It's clearly not accurate to say the arrival of the 2024 Olympics is the first intrusion of modernity at the Chateau de Versailles, but it is also a departure from the usual fare.
On the same ground where kings and world leaders hunted, rode and made history-shaping decisions, spectators queue for Cokes in commemorative plastic cups and sneak away into the trees with their vapes.
Actress Salma Hayek carries the Olympic torch in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Photo: LAURENT VU / AFP
The Olympic flame came through the palace in the days before the Games began, carried naturally by Salma Hayek. She shared the moment on her socials with a video soundtracked by Eminem's "Lose Yourself".
At the same place World War I was formally ended, tourists complain loudly about the lack of wi-fi.
It's jarring, and it's probably going to have rubbed many people up the wrong way.
But here's the kicker - none of this is a bad thing.
Paris has thrown itself wide open - that is the slogan for the Games, after all - and that means allowing as much of 2024 into its storied past as possible.
History loses its meaning without context, and though the Chateau is no less beautiful now than it was in the 16th century, maybe seeing it directly contrasted with concession stands and temporary bleachers illuminates that beauty even further.
Later in that same Sopranos episode, Carmela attempts to subsume Rosalie within her own nihilistic streak by asking about her son Jackie Jr, who was killed years earlier (sorry for the spoilers, but honestly, you should have watched it by now).
Rosalie refuses.
"We're on vacation. We're having a beautiful dinner. Why would you bring this up?" she says.
"Why can't we just have a good time?"
It's to Paris' great credit that it has been so welcoming of these Games, without ever turning the city into a theme park version of itself. It has not been burdened by the intrusion into its history, but has revelled in it.
Other cities may have rebelled at the thought of its essence being used in this way but Paris has leaned into it - why can't we just have a good time? - and in doing so has put what is most special about this place at the forefront of these Games.
French show jumping rider Penelope Leprevost poses in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles ahead of the Paris Games. Photo: STEFANO RELLANDINI / AFP
It's two weeks of a story that has spanned centuries, and in recognising and embracing that the organisers of these Olympics have created something everlasting.
Once the Olympics is over, all of this temporary infrastructure will be removed and the palace and its gardens will be swiftly returned back to normal.
It's going to be like that all across Paris, and in fact, you wonder if in six months there will be any sign the Games breezed through the city at all.
Only the memories will remain, soaked into the walls of incredible places like Chateau de Versailles and Le Grand Palais. The rest will get washed away.
- This story was first published by the ABC
