Day 3 - Versailles - The Sugar Land of Paris

Hi Team,

Well it's my first full day in Paris.  As it turns out, I was so excited about finally making it to the city, that I decided to immediately leave it the next morning and go to the Palace of Versailles.  It is in the 'burbs which obviously accounts for how these royalty folks could afford and build such a nice house.  Property taxes are probably a killer though.

Overall, it's quite a nice place to live I would think:  Wood parquet floors (no berber carpet to be found, however, not even in the bedrooms, which was a turnoff for me honestly), marble walls, gold inlaid crown molding, and a couple of pictures to hang on the wall.  Not quite as good as my living room shots of Lou Gehrig but passable. Unfortunately, I didn't see an indoor basketball hoop either so I had to take points off for that, but in the end, I could see the appeal.

In all seriousness, this place is huge.  I mean monstrous.  There are 700 rooms in this place.  And I don't mean ones that could be a small study or a closet.  I mean you could park 10 cars in there.  It's no wonder the French people got fired up and beheaded some of these folks.  And I'm only talking about the house right now.

If you go outside, you get to the Gardens with a capital G.  If you walked from the palace to the end of it (or at least what I thought was the end) it would take a solid 10 minutes, and walking the other two cardinal directions would take you probably twice as long.

I took the Metro out from the city center to Versailles around 9 or so in the morning.  It was about a 20-30 train ride.  While I was getting tickets I ran into a couple by the name of Fred and Cheryl Wood from Tuscon who were heading the same way. We started talking and hung out the entire train ride and up to the Palace while waiting in line.  They are wonderful people and I really enjoyed the visit.  Here is a shot of us after we finally got past security:

After that I started my trip inside.  They are constantly doing restorations on the palace.  Here is a shot of the before and after.

This is the backyard.  I spoke to the groundsman and he claims he can mow, weed eat, edge, and blow in an hour, but I'm skeptical.

Obligatory shot of me photoshopped into a picture of Versaille to "prove" I'm there.

To give you an idea of how big the Garden was, this is an absolutely beautiful lake that was on the side of the house that I had no idea was there until I walked up on it.

Me taking a shot of myself in the famous Hall of Mirrors.

This is the Queen's Bedchamber.  19 kids were born here, all in public so as to validate the legitimacy of the heir. Turns out they sell the exact same bed at Ikea for those of you who are interested.

My favorite room in the Palace:  The Hall of Battles which is over 30 paintings of this size in the largest  room in Versailles at 120 meters long.  In it are depictions of all of the famous battles in French History.  This is kind of like their trophy room.  Over a 1500 year period or so, France has won the mythical national championship 35 times.

After a good 6 hours round trip, I headed back to the hotel and rested for a bit.  Grabbed some ice cream and went off to get some food a little later.  I went to this place called Le Camille which was a little cafe in the heart of a section of town called Marais.  It is near the Bastille and St. Paul Cathedral.  I had a rumsteak and more butter with mashed potatoes.  And for dessert this berry thing with a crumbled topping crust.  It was not my famous chocolate taco (you who have been fortunate enough to experience it know what I'm talking about) but it was good nonetheless.

I was seated next to a couple from near Vancouver, Doug and Anne, and we hung out and had dinner together.  This is turning into my favorite part of the trip in the early going.  I get to meet a fair number of people who I'd never meet otherwise and visit.  It's really quite nice.

This is a shot of a typical intersection near the Bastille. Controlled chaos at it's finest.    

And here is a shot of the Bastille.  This is where the famous prison used to be that was stormed by the French common folk in 1789, which is considered the beginning of the French Revolution. 


So that concluded my first full day in Paris.  The only issues I'm having right now is finding enough time to do everything and still get some sleep.  Good problem to have I think and will hit the trail again tomorrow.  Homann out.