Tales of the Old Dark Frog: Versailles

Dawn rose on our last full day in France, and I headed out once more for the tasty pain au chocolat that Michelle and I had been breakfasting on everyday. After a relatively quick breakfast, we got on the train to Versailles, which was about a forty minute trip (including the Metro ride).

Versailles was undergoing renovation when we were there, and parts of it were closed to the public, so it's hard for me to say how impressive it really might be. To boot, by this time all of us were really quite tired, and it showed. Nonetheless, Versailles is huge, and it is beautiful, and we didn't do half of the things that we could have.

We started with a tour of the Dauphin's part of the palace, and we got the little audioguides. (Travel tip for anyone who goes there - stop and buy the daily passes from the tourism office before you get to the palace: they allow you to enter all parts of the palace, no standing in the long ticket lines at the palace itself, and they include the audioguides. We paid €20 for each pass, and children under 18 are free.) We ended up giving the audioguides to Dalton and Maggie as they clamoured to listen to them, and Dalton was somewhat distraught when we started pushing him through the rooms without giving him the chance to listen to the full five minute recording for each one. Afterwards, we sat and ate lunch in the cafe there at Versailles (more sandwiches) - and then went to the quarters of the King and Queen. Maggie was most impressed with the Queen's bedroom, and said she wanted one like it when we get back home.

After making our way through the thronging crowds in the Queen's rooms, we went to the gardens. The gardens are really large - one thing about Versailles is that it does overwhelm you with its size. We actually only made it about halfway down before stopping to rest on a bench for about half an hour, and then heading back up. At that point, we decided to go ahead and catch the train back to Paris, as we were all more or less exhausted, and we had to get packed for departure on the following day. Upon getting back to our neighborhood, we went to the Bonbonniere de Buci where we bought pizzas, croque monsieurs, and then across to Carton, where I got dessert - a millefeuille for Michelle, a foret noir for myself.