Sun. 09-02-07 -- Paris, France
Originally published on: 09-08-07
This morning we woke up at 8:30 because we had lots planned! Since this is the first Sunday of the month, entrance into the Louvre is free! But we wanted to get there early in hopes of beating the crowds.
We got there around 10am and the crowds were already there in full force! We entered through the glass pyramid and went straight to the Greek & Roman statues. I love looking at marble statues, there is so much amazing detail! We saw the Venus di Milo and Kara wormed her way through the crowd to take a picture. Then we made our way to the paintings and sought out Mona Lisa. The room was SO CROWDED, Kara practically had to body surf to get close enough for a picture! After Mona Lisa, we quickly moved through the room we were in and headed for the nearest exit! Kara and I just aren't much into art, so we were there just to see the famous stuff.
After we left the Louvre, we walked to the Musee de Orsay metro stop and bought one day pass & rail tickets to Versailles. The train came right away and the ride was about 40 minutes or so. When we got there we were hungry for lunch and there was a sandwich place in the train station. We ordered 2 sandwiches and a bottle of coke. We left the station and found a wall to sit on and eat our sandwiches (the coke tasted different).
After lunch, we walked to the entrance of Versailles and we were already impressed! The courtyard was huge, straight out of a fairy tale castle. We walked through the main palace and the interior was very lavishly decorated. Audio guides were included with the tour, but we found them too chatty, so we would only listen to a portion of each entry as we walked through the rooms. After the palace, we walked through the Dauphin's apartments and the princesses' apartments. All pretty cool, but maybe a little boring... and that's when everything got 100X better!
We took a trolley through the expansive gardens over to Marie Antoinette's estate. We walked through the Petit Trianon which seemed like a very nice but pretty regular house. Then we went for a walk through the "backyard." There were tons of little pathways around and over ponds. We stopped at a Greek style temple/gazebo called The Temple of Love. Then we walked back to Marie's hamlet. This place was absolutely unbelievable! It felt like a Disneyland about peasanthood. There was a little mill, and a farm, and a chalet, all of the buildings were so cute and quaint. I was pretty amazed with the place. After that we caught the trolley to the Grand Canal, a HUGE artificial body of water. Then we walked up and through the magnificent gardens. The fountains were all turned on (they only turn them on for a few hours each week) and everywhere you turned there was a different and spectacular fountain. It was seriously stunning to see such extravagance spread over such a large area. We probably saw 20 to 25 fountains, many of them different from the rest. Seriously amazing!
When the fountains turned off, we left and walked back to the train stop. We were starting to get hungry, and when we passed a McDonald's, it was too great a temptation! I ordered a Royal with Cheese (Samuel L. wasn't lying) and I got a beer with my meal! Oh, there was Dijon mustard on my burger, and Kara's deluxe potatoes came with spinach dip in one of those little sauce packets! I felt guilty when we were first going in there, but the experience was unique enough that I felt justified when I left! We were pretty worn out, so we took the train back to our hotel and hung out there before we went to sleep. We also washed and hung our first load of laundry in our room. We had to devise a way to hang the laundry line, but it seems to have worked well.
