Our Family Blog: The Grand Tour (Day 10): Paris

Today was a real highlight for me. I had always wanted to see the gardens of Versailles, and to experience it with Rebecca was a joy. We started the day by going to the Patisserie Angelina a few doors down from our Hotel.

Our hotel

Below: Becky on the Balcony of our room. We had the first two doors on each side of the building corner. The first on the side street, and the two on the front opened onto the bedroom, and the 2nd on the side street opened into the bathroom. The little balcony where Becky is standing was about 18" deep and was just large enough to step outside.

Below: Pastries at the Patisserie Angelina. We got some pastries and hot chocolate (which turned out to be so thick--like melted hot fudge--that we couldn't even finish it). We walked across the street to the Tuileries gardens and found a bench to sit and eat.

After finishing our pastries, we walked across the Tuileries, crossed a pedestrian bridge over the Seine, and bought train tickets to Versailles at the Musee d'Orsay metro station. The train ride was about 30 min from there to the Versailles station, and then another 10 minute walk to the front gates of Versailles.

Front side of the Palace of Versailles

Close-up of the Gate

We had our Paris Museum Passes that allowed us to bypass the long ticket line and walk right up to the security station. We were inside within 5 minutes.

Becky in front of Versailles. Isn't she beautiful? She fits Versailles well.

The Chapel Royale in Versailles

There were so many rooms, its hard to keep them all straight. But they were all extravagantly decorated and furnished. At this point in our trip, we had both reached an information saturation point, and we were content to just experience the palace without listening to the audio guide and without reading every sign. Occasionally, we stopped to read about a room, or eavesdropped on a nearby tour guide, but mostly just walked through. (My preferred kind of touring!)

A room in the Palace where something important took place (Indoor palace shots are a bit blurry because it was a bit on the dark side, and they didn't allow flash photos inside)

The Hall of Mirrors runs along the ground floor the entire length of the Palace and dozens of doors along the way open up into the gardens. Probably the most beautiful room in the palace. However, I got a little annoyed with the temporary exhibits that were set up at a lot of museums we visited. At Versailles, they were showcasing an exhibit of contemporary art, which I found to be very distracting and jarring. We paid to see the real thing....not a larger than life, sequined-covered high-heel shoe in the Hall of Mirrors!

The Hall of Mirrors

Another view of the Hall of Mirrors (with the mirrors that reflect the expansive gardens outside the opposite windows)

Louis XIV, XV, or XVI's Bedchamber

A room with a nice table

I think this is Marie Antionette's bedchamber and where she hid when the mobs came to take them. (Also notice the awful contemporary sculpure on display in the corner).

Another terrible sculpture in one of the halls

After walking through the Palace, we took a short bathroom break (by we, I should say, I found a bench and sat while Becky stood in a line and paid a half-euro to use the facilities). We walked back around the palace and started walking through the gardens. Just to the South of the palace, we watched some kind of military ceremony in the Orangerie (the potted orange and citrus "grove" so they could bring them into the greenhouse for the winter).

The gardens were in the process of being replanted with summer flowers, so the part of the insides of the planters were bare dirt. But still, the patterns of the hedges was beautiful.

The Latona Fountain just below the palace.

Just beyond the fountain and pool above, you just barely get a sense of the expanse of garden. It goes on for over a mile to the far end. And in between are smaller mini-gardens hidden away here and there. When Louis the XIV built the palace, there wasn't enough water pressure to run all of the fountains, so as he walked down into the garden, they turned on each fountain as he passed by and turned it back off when he passed on. Now, they only turn the fountains on for special events and on weekends when they charge extra admission fees.

I loved the sculpture that dotted the paths than descended down into the gardens.

From a few terraces down, looking back up to the palace

The Neptune Fountain

I love Alles of trees.

The Grand Canal. They had bleachers set up for some kind of evening dancing waters show with live classical music.

When we got down to the canal, we found the golf cart rental shop where we booked a cart for $30Euro/hour (we kept it for two hours). It sounds like a lot, but it was well worth the cost. It got quite hot by late morning, and the distance around Versailles is deceptively far. I had read about the golf carts before we left and wanted to get one to spare Becky's feet from a lot of walking. The golf cart was perfect and I would do it again in a heartbeat. It was controlled by GPS and would not let you leave a pre-determined path around the gardens (and would shut off if you left the path). It had classical music playing and when you arrived near a point of interest, it would play the audio commentary.

Becky enjoying our sweet ride

A perfect allee....

Another allee anyone?

A copy of Laocoon and his Sons (we saw the original that was in the Vatican Museums in Rome)

I love the rhythm of the trees and the sculpture with the manicured hedge backdrop

A hideous contemporary sculpture in the fountain next to the palace

We rode the golf cart back up to the top of the gardens

Then we rode the golf cart to the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon. If your were one of the Louies or Marie Antionette, and the palace felt too big for you, you could escape to the mini-palace or the mini-mini-palace. Marie Antoinette created a hamlet off near the Petit Trianon where she had recreated a mini working hamlet (complete with dairy, gardens, mill, barns, etc.) She escaped to this hamlet and dressed up as a shepherd girl and herded sheep.

Marie Antionette's hamlet

The Petit Trianon

The Grand Trianon

From Versailles, we walked back to the train station, picked up some food (and a large drink) from McDonalds (because they had bathrooms) and ate the food on the train back to Paris.

Becky had visited the Eiffel Tower the last time she was in Paris, and was more interested in visiting the Musee' Cluny with their Medieval artifacts, so we decided to split up and conquer for the afternoon. I got off the train at the Eiffel Tower and she continued on to go to the Cluny Museum.

One of the elevators in the Eiffel Tower had broken down and was being repaired, which left only one working elevator to shuttle visitors to the top of the tower. The choice was either to wait in a hot line that was several hours long, or wait less than 5 minutes to climb the staircase. (The stairs only go to the second level viewing platform....not to the top. But the second level is about 15-20 stories high and still had some pretty fantastic views around the city.) I chose the stairs, and just about died from the heat and the climbing. I bought a 2-litre bottle of water in the shop on the 2nd level observation deck and just about drank it in one shot.

Approaching the tower from the Seine River

The structural members that comprise the tower and the maze of steps that work their way up.

Les Hospital des Invalides (with the gold domed top--where Napoleon is entombed)

Paris to the northeast with Montmarte on the distant hill (we never made it up there because we ran out of time)

The Champs de Mars below the tower

Our hotel in the distance (just to the left of the Ferris Wheel)

A photographer working with a couple in front of the Eiffel Tower

Looking back to the Tower. The second level viewing platform is deceptively higher than it appears!

I walked back to the metro station and caught a subway over to the Ile de la Cite and walked to the Cluny Museum to meet up with Becky. (Did I mention that it was a very warm day?!) When I got to the museum (housed in an old cloister), Becky had me go to a room in the Museum called the "refridarium" where they would store meats and drinks. It was like a walk-in cooler and was a perfect place to cool down and catch our breath after a long day of walking.

The refridarium in the Cluny

The courtyard of the Cluny Museum where I caught back up with Becky.

On our way back to the hotel, we walked across the Place de la Concorde (where all of the guillotine executions--including Marie Antionette's--took place).

The Cathedral of the Madeleine from the Place de la Concorde

The fountain and Egyptian obelisk on the Place de la Concorde

As we walked across the road to the gate of the Tuileries, we bought some Granitas--fruit-flavored slushes. It was so hot, and the slushes were so cold! It tasted so good! We strolled through the gardens and made our way back to the hotel to take a rest.

We took some pictures when we got back to the room and was clean for the day

After a short nap, we took our dirty laundry and walked to a laundromat about 3-4 blocks away. There was a grocery store next door and we bought some fruit, crackers, macaroons, etc. We also bought a baguette from a nearby patisserie and ate it for dinner. It was a slice of Parisian life away from the tourist areas. We felt like real Parisians just watching the real ones in the nearby cafes.

While our laundry was running, I took a walk a few blocks away up to the Palais Garnier, or the Paris Opera House.

Palais Garnier

Streets in front of the Opera House

I wanted to go into the Galleries Lafayette (a famous shopping arcade), but just as I got there, they were closing up for the night and ushering people out the doors.

More Paris streets with typical Parisian architecture.

Our hotel had two elevators...a service elevator, and this normal use elevator for guests. It was, literally, no more than about 18" deep and more than just a little claustrophobic!

The full depth of the elevator

We took our laundered clothes back to the hotel, and then took a subway down the river to catch an evening boat cruise on the Seine River. It was a magical and romantic ride as we went under all of the bridges and passed all of the important buildings that line the riverfront all lit up at night.

Our open-top boat

Passing Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral

As we rode around the Ile de la Cite, there were groups of partying young people that lined the banks of the river. The tour boats have big flood lights that light up the adjacent buildings and bridges as we passed. Just as we were passing this group, one of the guys in the group turned around and mooned us as we went by. (In fully flood-lighted glory.)