This is a panoramic view of the Orangerie, part of the gardens of Versailles, looking southwest from the palace toward the Swiss Lake. It's certainly an impressive bit of craftsmanship, but I can't bring myself to love it. Even to my OCD-inflected mind, it seems just a little too overplanned and sterile. But I guess Louis XIV liked it, and that's all that matters.
Adrian Monk would have been delighted, too.
You just recently told us in your lunchtime photo of Versailles, that you hate *French Formal Garden(s)* though not specifically, correctly calling it out as such.
It's not that it's sterile; it's that they refused to relinquish even a tiny bit of control to Nature, for the sake of the expression of wealth and power of the monarchy.
"they refused to relinquish even a tiny bit of control to Nature"
That's it! Contrast this over-controlled approach with, say, a Japanese-style garden. More "natural" than Nature itself! (and Adrian Monk would have hated it.)
Great picture!