The End of our Trip

Tuesday, May 13

We left our apartment and walked across the island (Ile de la Cite) to the Saint-Michel train station and took the RER C to Versailles.  It is just a 10-minute walk from the station to the Chateau de Versailles, which already had a very long line to get in.  Note to others – when we left, in the early afternoon, the line was quite short.  It took about an hour to get through the line and into the grounds where we picked up audioguides, and then spent the next 2 hours fighting our way through crowds of people seeing the halls of the Palace.  Arne had been here before on one of his trips with Boeing, but it was my first time there.  The palace is AMAZING, and the gardens INCREDIBLE.  The scope of the place is hard to describe.  Suffice it to say, with the show of ostentatious wealth and privilege – no wonder there was a revolution!   :-P

Below, I have paraphrased a little history about the Palace of Versailles from their website:

The site began as Louis XIII’s hunting lodge before his son Louis XIV transformed and expanded it, moving the court and government of France to Versailles in 1682. Each of the three French kings who lived there until the French Revolution added improvements to make it more beautiful.  In the 1670s, Louis XIV built the Grand Apartments of the King and Queen, whose most emblematic achievement is the Hall of Mirrors designed by Mansart, where the king put on his most ostentatious display of royal power in order to impress visitors.  The Chapel and Opera were built in the next century under Louis XV.

 The château lost its standing as the official seat of power in 1789, with the French Revolution, but acquired a new role in the 19th century as the Museum of the History of France.  Some photos of the Palace:

The gate to the grounds of the Palace and Gardens

Part of the Palace and the chapel

More of the Palace (note all the bust sculptures on the side of the palace)

Different colored marble - beautiful!

More of the marble and the gold leafed ornamentation

The Hall of Mirrors

The ceiling in the hall of mirrors

Arne - heading for another wing of the palace

The Palace

The rugs in the palace were amazing!

One of the princesses beds

One of the libraries of the princesses - all books had been leather bound with the crest of the royal family in gold on the front

We spent an hour or so in the Gardens, wandering through the maze and down to the Bassin d’Apollon then back up toward the palace on Allée Royale then went over to see the Versailles Orangerie, which used to house the stables of the palace.  Below are some photos of the gardens.

Looking out at the Gardens from the top of the stairs

In the gardens - note all the statues!  They are every where!

Me in the gardens

Arne in the 'maze' - not really a maze, although, I think we could have gotten lost in there!  I took this to show how tall the hedge was!

One of the fountains (not on at the moment)

Looking back at the palace from halfway into the gardens

This is as far as we got in the gardens - the Bassin d'Apollon

The palace

More of the palace

The Orangerie

More of the Orangerie

By then, we were tired of the crowds (although, the garden is so spacious, you don’t notice the crowds much), so we walked into the town of Versailles for lunch.  It started to rain during lunch – but fortunately, we were under cover.  We caught the RER and in approximately 45 minutes we were back in Paris. 

I urge you to go to Google Maps and put in Versailles, France.  It will help you get an idea how large the palace/gardens are by noting the size of the people in the satellite view of the gardens on Google Maps.  

Wednesday, May 14

Our last full day in Paris, and we had seen everything we had planned to see…so we walked across Ile de la Cite again and hopped on the “Big Bus” tour.  We got off at La Grande Palais, and walked to Bateaux-Mouches and took a 45 minute sightseeing cruise along the Seine.  Although, definitely NOT a ‘must do’ – the cruise provided an interesting perspective of the city from the river.

Traffic at the Arc de Triomphe - no traffic lines...

I would not want to drive here...

Notre Dame from the river

Arne

Eiffel Tower

Me - having yet another bad hair day...

The cruise went right past the tower.

Strolling down the Champs Elysees with a few thousand friends...

Tuileries Gardens

The Musee d'Orsay from the gardens

The Arc du Carrousel

One last look at the Louvre

After the cruise, we walked back toward the apartment along the Champs-Élysées, to the Jardin des Tuileries.  We found a restaurant located in the gardens and had a nice lunch before walking back to the apartment one last time past the Louvre.  Time to pack, get some dinner, and head home tomorrow.

Thursday, May 15

We were both so excited to be coming home, we were up at the crack of dawn, packed and ready to roll an hour before the taxi was scheduled to arrive (at 9AM).  Fortunately, the taxi was early, so we were on our way to the airport before 9:00.  The trip to the airport was relatively quick (under an hour), compared to our arrival. 

The flights home were uneventful (thank God), although long, and we arrived in Seattle a little before 5PM.  By six we were unpacking, and by 9PM we were asleep in our own bed for the first time in 7+ weeks.  Ahhhhhh!

It was an incredible trip!  We saw SO MANY wonderful places and sights, and had many great experiences….I am very happy now to have the blog, so we can relive the trip.  I highly recommend blogging while doing something like this, just because you would forget all the little details if you don’t write them down (well, I would forget the details!). 

I’m not sure I will continue to blog – certainly not as often as I have the past 2 months, but maybe on occasion.  We shall see.