Day 3 in Paris - a visit to Versailles

After an early 7:00 am breakfast we headed to the metro by 7:50 am. We caught a train over to near the Eiffel Tower and then changed to the RER train (suburban rail) for the 30 minute journey to Versailles, on the outskirts of Paris. A 10 minute walk to the Versailles Palace saw us joining the long and rapidly growing queues in time for opening at 9:00 am. I had words with an ignorant man who jumped the queue ahead of over 200 people and who tried to stand in front of me. "NO!" I said. He told me that we were all on holiday and to calm down, but backed in behind me in the queue. Believe me, you see some beauts!



We were able to get through quickly, using our wonderful Museum Passes, and grabbed a free audio guide each and had our Rick Steves books open at his Versailles tour pages as well. Then we joined the throng squeezing its way through the corridors and amazing rooms of this amazing Palace built by Louis XIV, the 'Sun King'. What decadence! I kept thinking about the poor people who must have funded it all through their taxes to the King.

Versailles is a huge palace, then a huge area of gardens and parks, fountains, a 'Grand Canal' with its own gondolas, Greek and Roman styled statues, other smaller palaces, and even a 'hamlet' (a tiny peasant village) built by Marie Antoinette for when she wanted the 'simple life'.

After touring the palace, we exited the building to find it raining. I needed to rest my legs and get off my feet, and we were lucky enough to find a tiny cafe where we could have a coffee and check what Rick suggested we should see next. We discovered there was a 'petit train' that we could ride (for a fee) to a further area of the grounds to see the Grand Palais Trianon, and then the Petit Palais Trianon, as well as other buildings of interest and the hamlet. We also had to pay to get into the gardens because it was Saturday and they had the fountains working and music playing. So, off we all went on the train to save a 40 minute walk there.

These other sights were all very interesting, but David and I found the hamlet to be really memorable (after getting lost in the huge parklands whilst trying to find it). It was so quaint, like out of a fairy story. Except... this tiny peasant village had been very real over 200 years ago. As Rick pointed out, Marie Antoinette craved the simple life, so had the village built. But, her home in the village was big enough to have a billiard room and a library! And she didn't do peasant work, only supervised the work of others!

After a long tour around these smaller palaces and grounds, we caught the train to the Grand Canal and had a cappuccino while we waited to catch up with Jan and Steve. The cappuccinos are different than ours. They either have a black coffee with froth on top, or as in this case a huge dollop of stiffly whipped cream over a tiny amount of black coffee. We're finding them very expensive, too, at around 5.70 Euro each!

With Jan and Steve, we then wandered back towards the Palace along the royal drive, looking at the statues, fountains and other items of interest along the way - the 'ancient' colonnade was amazing! The view towards the Palace, and later back from it and out towards the gardens was very memorable.

We had finished our lovely day at Versailles and now headed back towards the railway station 10 minutes away. Man alive, my legs and feet were killing me by now. We got seats on the train, but had to wait 30 minutes before it left. We were crammed in like sardines, and had the dubious pleasure of listening to the conversation between two American students about their travels in Europe for the 30 minute return journey.

I dragged myself back to our hotel and collapsed on the bed. We later enjoyed a nice dinner at a restaurant across the road. But even I was in bed by 9:30 pm and asleep shortly after! We were rudely awoken at 2:50 am by what sounded like a group of men who had congregated on the street outside the hotel, having loud conversations that went on for ages (this sort of event seems to follow David and I around the world wherever we stay in hotels). Finally I phoned reception and asked if they could move these people along, and fortunately they succeded.