Paris Day 2-Versailles

March 12, 2017

Paris Day 2-Versailles

I'm not sure when I first learned what Versailles was or when I first saw pictures of it, but I have wanted to visit the palace for almost as long as I can remember. The Louvre is closed on Tuesdays so we decided to go to Versailles on Tuesday and it ended up being perfect! It didn't rain on us and the sun even came out when we were walking in the gardens. The only small disappointment was that since we went in March, the flowers and trees weren't in bloom in the gardens. But, since we came in March, it was much less crowded than it is during the busy season so I won't complain too much.

We got up Tuesday morning and stopped by the bakery and got some pain au chocolat and a quiche to share for breakfast. You guys, that quiche was unreal. Please try a quiche in France. We got stopped by a man on the street asking for directions which we couldn't help him with because A) we have no idea where anything is and B) my French isn't good enough to give directions even if we knew where things were, but I did like that he thought we were locals and not tourists! Hooray for not being annoying Americans abroad! We walked to the train station and took the train out to Versailles. We went one stop too far and decided to call an Uber rather than wait for the next train to come since the trains don't run as frequently that far from Paris. It was kind of perfect though because our driver took us as far as he could which was almost right to the gates of Versailles and I loved being dropped at the gates of Versailles! At this point it was still grey and cloudy, but I got a pretty great picture of the statue of Louis XIV on his horse outside the palace with the grey sky as background.

Just the outside of the building was... I don't even have the words. The palace is HUGE and it is so over the top beautiful. It was extremely impressive with the cobble stone courtyard and the big gold gates and the French flag waving against the grey sky over the gold rimmed roof. We had to wait in line for about 15 minutes to get tickets and then we had to wait in another line for another 15 or so minutes to get inside, but I loved taking in everything from the outside. We did feel a little sad for France though. At the Eiffel Tower and here at the palace, there were French National Police in full uniform/equipment, helmets and everything, patrolling around with their guns right in their hands ready for anything. It was a little jarring to see honestly. Given their recent history we couldn't blame them but it made us pretty sad for them.

When we got in to the palace I had two thoughts. First, "WOW!!" Jaw dropped, eyes wide, I couldn't take it all in fast enough. The second thought was, "No wonder the people started a revolution." Everything was perfect down to the last details. Every surface was engraved or covered in gold or marble, even the wood floors were in a beautiful pattern. It was absolutely stunning, but you definitely felt where the lower classes were coming from. I wish these pictures did the palace justice, but hopefully it inspires a wish to visit for yourself. These pictures aren't in any order because they didn't upload in order and I'm not going to take the time to sort through it

This was either the King or Queen's bedroom

The other's bedroom

Seriously, look at these beautiful floors!

This was the first room we saw coming in

This fireplace was so big I couldn't fit the whole thing in my picture standing 10 ft back from it!
Couldn't go back any further because of all the people

When we were done we went into the gift shop there and found these beautiful silver candlesticks and snatched them up. One of Greg's favourite books is Les Mis and he has always wanted some silver candlesticks like the bishop gives to Jean Valjean so it was perfect to get our silver candlesticks in France! From there we headed out to the gardens. You guys, these gardens... We went in the beginning of March when nothing was in bloom and none of the trees had leaves and it still was absolutely beautiful. We checked out the fountains and pools they had close by first.

We found a little restaurant in one part of the gardens and had a late lunch there. It turned out to be a beautiful day so we were quite pleased to be able to eat in the gardens. The sun came out and the promise of spring was in the air. I had roast chicken and Greg had steak frites with a pepper sauce. They had some desserts that looked pretty good, but I knew there was a Ladurée macaron shop inside the palace so we headed back to get some macarons before exploring the rest of the gardens. These macarons are worth all the hype about them. The cookie was perfectly crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside and the ganache fillings were just perfection. And the flavours! Ah! We found some benches in part of one of the gardens to sit and enjoy a couple and it was just the perfect way to spend an afternoon.