3-June: 3rd Day in Paris

Earlier we decided to put off seeing Château de Versailles until today because of the weather, and what a great decision that was.  The weather was great, 70s all day.  Navigating to Versailles went smoothly, had to take the metro to the right RER station (Line C), get a ticket, and then follow the rest of the Americans...  The palace was packed with throngs of tourists, but worth the hassle to see it.  Saw many Rick Steve's books in hands of travelers.

For those that don't know, Versailles was used as the place of central government for all of France from 1682-1789.  It was built by Louis XIV to rule France from outside of Paris, allowing him to control with absolute monarchy.  Most of Versailles was a tribute to him because of his lengthy reign, 72 years.

Every room inside the palace was extravagant and excessive (try Biltmore times 5, plus 2 tons of gaudy-ness), all the trim was gilded gold with very fine detail.  Huge paintings were hung all over, ceilings included.  There was a large banquet hall called the Hall of Mirrors.  The sun shone in the windows, and on the opposite side, hit mirrors to light up the room.  This was built at a time where mirrors were very expensive, and was used to prove the wealth of the french monarchy.

As we left the palace we went into the gardens.  We got lost in the maze of groves looking for a place to sit, because we had expensive tourist pizza to eat.  We got "Pizza Classico," which had sliced tomatoes and olives.  Not sure whats so classic about that, but it wasn't too bad.

Next, we headed towards the petite trianon, a little personal place built for the queen.  It was cute and quaint (according to Meghan).  Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XIV wanted a simpler, more natural place and had her own thatched roof petite château bulit.  Meghan really liked this, it had a nice little pond and garden, with lots of pretty bearded irises and other "tooti" bushes.

Yay! Picture TIME!!!

Meghan said the Temple of Love looks like the Old Well in Chapel Hill.  So I took a picture of it for her.

After Versailles, we went to the Musée d'Orsay, an old train station turned into a museum.  It has a large collection of Impressionist pieces, lots of Monet and Van Gogh.

My favorite piece was Dante and Virgil in Hell by Adolphe William Bourguereau.  A really wild looking painting.  We weren't allowed to take pictures here, and that is why there aren't any in the photo album.


There are more pictures of our adventure in the picasa album, click here or the View My Gallery link at the top of the page under the photostream.