06-01 Palace of Versailles

The Palace of Versailles is famous for two things: biggest palace in Europe and a peace treaty was signed here at the end of WWI.



It's not IN Paris. We took a 40 min train ride, a 10 min walk, and arrived at 9:30. Our 2-day Museum Pass allowed us to get right in.

It was built by King Louis XIV in the late 1600's and cost a lot (about $2 billion in today's money). Here's the king up on his high horse.



And here we are inside the golden gates of the palace.



We picked up the FREE audio guide and we proceeded on. Armed with Rick Steve's audio guide and theirs we were able to forget twice as much about the rooms in this museum. Thankfully we have pictures.

One room was unforgettable and that was the Hall of Mirrors (echo, echo, echo). They lined a a whole wall of this grand room and the other side had a view of the gardens outside. It was where I'd host MY parties.



Some rooms because of their small size were jammed with people; other rooms were grand and you were able to move around easily to take pictures.

Everyone liked Marie Antoinette's bedroom and the areas where the public was allowed to watch them. Karen says that because they were servants of the public that the public got to see what they did.





Another curiosity was that the public was allowed to view the birth of the next king. We have no pictures of this as proof.

The gardens are immense. It is a 20 min walk to get to another set of Summer/I-want-to-get-away-from-everyone houses. They were not nearly as ornate and evidently that's the way they wanted it. Everything you can see is just a part of the gardens.



The gardens were the most beautiful we had seen though. They were really well kept.



However why were the fountains turned off? Really? These should be a set - Gardens AND Fountains. To not have them on was a money grabbing oversight. See, they turn them on during the evenings on the weekends and charge you more to see them.



After our long slow walk out to the other houses and a couple of hours of looking around we decided to take the Little Train back to the main building. Good decision. We'd done a lot of walking today. That's the Summer Home that you see in the distance.



We left Versailles at 4:30 and headed back to Paris on the train and even though the train was almost full we found a seat. About 4 stops from home I realized that we would be passing the Orange Museum so I asked Karen if she wanted to stop. We had done a lot of walking today but I knew she wanted to see the Water Lilles and we could do it for free with our museum pass.

We got off and into the museum around 5:15 or so. Ho hum. I can do without impressionist painters. Come on. If you want to paint water lillies then paint them so that I know they are water lillies. Are we playing guessing games with our paints?

Karen like the natural lighting coming from the skylights. It was interesting to note that the paintings were huge and that the room was designed to house the 8 pieces of artwork.

We took the train home the rest of the way and had dinner at a cafe right outside our door. Karen saw raclette on someone's plate one night and wanted to have it again. I'll let her describe her experience.

I have Raclette and Pat has steak. Pat's steak doesn't look so good, very thin. I thought I would get a bowl of melted cheese and potatoes to dip on them. Not. I got a plate with six slices of cheese and two whole potatoes and a second plate with salami, pepperoni, ham, and tomatoes. And a long skinny metal tray on top of a warming dish. Sooo what do I do?? I don't know, I'll have to wing it. I put a slice of cheese on the tray and it starts to melt and sometimes I dip things on the tray and sometimes I scrap the melted cheese off on to my plate of food. Nobody told me I was doing it wrong or how to do it so I just enjoyed it.

Not thinking we had done enough today we went out at 9pm and headed for the Eiffel Tower to see "The Sparkle".

Millions of lights turn on and off on the tower for 5 min on the hour after dark. We looked around for a good place to take photos and videos. We got them at one place for one show them we moved and took them from another spot for the other show.



Karen's hand held shots were better than my timed shots on our little tripod thing. The camera didn't focus correctly on the tripod.

I did try some longer exposure shots and some of those turned out nicer.



We headed for the subway after the 11pm show - the end of a long day of touristing.

05-29 Beautiful Views from the Eiffel Tower

Guest blogger again today. Who else but Karen could convey to you how wonderful the Eiffel Tower is?

We leave our room late at 9:30 heading for the Eiffel Tower. Jessica, I'll take lots of pictures for you.

At the Eiffel Tower we encounter a line going diagonally through the center from the East Pillar to the street and down the street.

The fast elevator had been down a while. Pat hears in line that the line is three hours long. I walk to find the stairs line. Go back and get Pat and the stairs line is triple when I was just here a few minutes ago. And before we can reach the line a huge school group gets in.

We start up the 669 steps at 10:05am. Arriving at the 1st floor at 10:39. The views are amazing!!!

The River Seine, all the boats; I love active rivers. I can see the Champs Elysées and the Arc de Triomphe. Beautiful sunny day for pictures. Just enough fluffy white clouds to make gorgeous pictures.

Up to the second floor at 12:15. More pictures and the gift shop is small but WE look great.

Here is how long the line is now to take the stairs up when we are on the 2nd floor.

The line for the elevator from the ground floor to the top still winds from under the tower and out to the street. That's it there on the left side.

This is how wide the walking area is on the 2nd floor.

In line to take the elevator to the top. This is everyone who walked up the stairs.

Up at the top there is a small inside area. It's smaller than inside the Space Needle.

You can walk all the way around if you are inside the glass area or if you are outside in the weather. I'm 1,000 feet in the sky.!! The view is so good we take the same pictures we just took on the 2nd level.

I take several panorama shots; very COOL!!!

You can see the River Seine on the left and on the right!

There are also windows that you look in that show Eiffel's office at the top. There's Eiffel, Thomas Edison (and the phonograph he presented to Eiffel on his visit to the tower during the Exposition), and Eiffel's daughter Clair.

They also had a window, open briefly during our visit, that served Champagne in a glass that came to a point at the bottom so you couldn't set it down. It was called the Champagne Bar. You can also see the width of the outside walking area and how crowded it can get up here.

We arrive back on the second floor at 1:43 and have lunch. Quiche Lorraine and pizza, Coke and Pringles 1:53. We start down back down the 669 stairs at 2:30. At the base of the tower I bought a mini Eiffel Tower and a mini Arc de Triomphe

It's a sunny and warm so we head over to the Arc de Triomphe.

We locate the passageway under the traffic, pay for our ticket and find out the elevator to the top is OUT! So we walk up another 284 steps.

This traffic circle is ten, count them ten, lanes of traffic wide. What were they thinking ???? Makes me dizzy.

Wow more cool views. This time Mr Eiffel's Tower is in them. Cool.

The traffic is amazing going around this thing. From above we see and hear two units of soldiers march through the intersection at 6:30 to place flowers on the tomb of the unknown soldier. A ceremony done every night.

Back down on the ground we head down the Champs Élysées. We see the car tunnel that Princess Diana died in.

Food tonight is McDs fish sandwich, fries, MnM Blizzard and nuts & pecan Blizzard .

Then we took the 8:22 subway to Chatelet, one stop past the Louvre, and walk across the island, where the Notre Dame Cathedral sits, to our apartment in the Latin Quarter at 8:45pm. Yes my feet hurt. I'm beat.

I took 918 pictures today; a fine total considering where we've been, The Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triumphe. Hey we're in Paris!!!