Paris: part 3

Blogging. It takes such a time commitment. Good thing we don't go sightseeing every single week, or I'd be still writing about February right now. I better finish off Paris soon, so vroom vroom... off we go.

One day we decided to go to Versailles, a city not far from Paris. It is best known as the location of the Château de Versailles, a creation of Louis XIV. He wanted somewhere nice to live (away from crowded Paris) and from where the country could be governed. Thus was born this oversize cottage.

Our day in Versailles was the worst day of our trip. It was terribly hot and the lineups of people were ridiculous. The unpleasantries started in Paris, where we attempted to take the route generally suggested for tourists who want to reach Versailles: take this subway line to that one, then to another, then to this other rail line, which then gets you to Versailles. Unfortunately the rail line that was supposed to get us there was closed for construction or something; if you understood French well and could understand it over the tinny public address system, you probably had an edge over 90% of us that day. We were somewhere in that 90. We got off the subway at a station and noticed transit employees telling people what was up... but in French. Luckily for us, a young French couple from Nice got all the info and noticed us looking lost. They checked whether we were bound for Versailles and, upon learning that we were, invited us to follow them. We did, and although they weren't too sure about the instructions for the convoluted route to take to Versailles, they at least spoke French and could inquire of people as we went.

After much transit-taking and walking/running, we four arrived at the above-ground train that was to take us to Versailles. Sadly, everyone and their dog seemed to be headed to Versailles and since this train didn't run nearly as often as subways do, a whole lot of people were trying to get onto this one. At a glance, we knew we'd never get any seats so we stood inside a train car at the end of it where the doors are. It seemed a bit hectic to us but there weren't too many other options. What was worrying, however, was that the train wasn't leaving for another 20 minutes and people were constantly arriving and trying to board. By the time we set off, I longed for the conditions of the train when we had first arrived: standing room only, but with the ability to breathe. Now we couldn't even fall down, we were so sardined! I wish I'd gotten a picture of it, but I doubt I would have been able to get the camera out of its bag.

Not pleasant. On arriving at the Palace of Versailles, we were met with a ridiculously long line of people waiting to get into the place. So we stood in line forever and wondered why we had looked forward to summer weather. It was cooking! Fortunately our fellow tourists from Nice were great company, and they spoke little English so we got to practise our French. Without them, our day would have been downright lousy. But now we'll have somewhere to stay if we ever want to visit Nice.



The prices were horrible compared to many other sights we'd seen, but we coughed it up anyway. We finally got in and enjoyed a few self-guided tours with headsets. Here are some obligatory pictures.



We had planned to see the palace gardens at 3pm because that is when the fountains are turned on for a couple of hours, so we stood in line forever again and paid another fortune to get into the gardens. (We determined later that we had wandered aimlessly into the gardens earlier via some lesser known route that didn't require any payment... oh well, I didn't really want to retire before 80 anyway.)

Once in the gardens, things went better. There was plenty of space so it didn't seem like there were a million people on the grounds. Plenty of statues and shrubs and fountains to admire.





It was early in the year so some areas of the garden weren't open yet, and there weren't nearly as many flowers as Carrie remembered there being, but despite that it was a very nice place to spend the afternoon, especially later once most of the people had cleared out.



Well, for a worst day it turned out all right. Next time we just won't go on a weekend, especially not a long weekend.