Versailles

On Saturday, the plan was to go to Versailles. We had bought tickets in advance and took the RER (which I’m guessing is like the overground rail service) there. We asked for directions at our hotel and set off in the designated direction. It’s a good thing we left early because the directions were wrong. Completely wrong. There was no RER station in the general area where we ended up. We asked a passing woman who gave us some correct directions and made our way there. Once on the train, which had two stories, we met an American family. We tend to meet a lot of Americans in France, which I think is quite interesting. On the ride, a band got on the train and played for us then came around asking for money. Then a woman passed out some flyers (which were in French) and then she asked for money! There are so many peddlers in Paris! They are everywhere. We finally made it to Versailles and walked up to the palace. Versailles is an old palace that the kings of France, Louis XIV, XV, XVI, resided. Marie Antoinette also lived there. After the French Revolution, I believe Napoleon lived there as well. The place as a whole is huge. There are several buildings apart from the main palace and so much land. We had to wait in a massive line to even get in. There were some issues with our tickets, but eventually, after we got through security, we made it into the palace.  There were a ton of rooms to go through so we started and saw lots of beautiful things. A lot of the furniture had been auctioned off during the French Revolution, so that was a shame. It was also a lot like Hampton Court. It was a castle that old kings and queens lived in.  Once again, the ceilings were quite notable. There were so many people there (kinda a tourist trap), and I’m not a fan of crowds, but it was nice. I don’t know anything about French history, but the whole experience did make me want to learn more. We also got to see the Hall of Mirrors which has huge windows on one side and mirrors on the other and from the ceiling are roughly two dozen crystal chandeliers which make the room spectacular. They at some artist’s big modern sculpture works on display in different rooms and it ruined the place some. It was hard to look at the historical rooms with her tacky artwork sitting there. I almost want to write them a letter about how tacky that was.

The Hall of Mirrors

We then explored the gardens which were beautiful, but it did begin to rain some. The main palace was only the beginning, so we took a little golf cart train to the remaining parts. There were two more places, the Grand Triannon and the Petite Triannon, each with their own rooms and gardens. Those were beautiful as well and we saw where Marie Antoinette stayed. Most of the rooms were so matchy matchy with the curtain and chairs and bed all being made from the same fabric. It was a bit excessive. The whole place was exhausting and took a while. We did stop for lunch and I had another ham and cheese sandwich. The bread in Paris is simply amazing. We made our way back to the main city of Paris where we decided to have dinner. Our hotel is own a main street so we decided it was only proper that we eat near there. Before that though, we needed to check out the Royal Opera House. We got off one metro station and were about to transfer when we saw a monument of a gold flame. It was on our way to the station so we stopped to have a look. It was a replica of the flame that the Statue of Liberty is holding. But, we noticed something else. There were flowers around the monument and pictures of Diana. We had come across the place where Diana’s car had crashed. People still leave flowers and have written all over the walls of the underpass. I’m so glad we saw that. The opera house was also amazing. It was so beautiful! One day, I want to see something there.

Flowers for Diana

The tunnel where her car crashed.

For dinner, we found a place called Les Débats which looked pretty good. Inside it looked like it would be a hopping place at night. I had the white pizza but it was nothing like the ones in America. Basically, it was some fancy pizza crust with greens, tomatoes, and mozzarella on top sprinkled with an oil like thing. It was weird and like a salad on some dough, but I ate it and it was good. After dinner we decided to walk around the area, as it was our last night. We also ran across a Haagen Dazs store and stopped in for some ice cream. Delicious! I had the cookie crumble sundae. Afterwards we chilled in the business center of the hotel to get some work done and plan our final day!

Week Five: Day Six: BLC 20