Versailles

Day 8: 5/25/2013

We met Jon at 10:10 and took the RER to Versailles. There were also 2 other girls from Michigan that we met as well. Their names were Kelsey and Paige. They were taking a 2 week class and then going to start there internships. They were pretty shy but nice, and much better at French then all of us. When we got there, there was a 2 hour wait for the line but luckily Jon had bought our tickets beforehand so we got to skip the line and get on with the tour right away. We first looked at the castle. It was massive. Every room had intricate details ad either a massive painting or some kind of grand furniture. It was quite extraordinary to see and to think that it was done so long ago. I was quite often thinking about the time that this fortress took to make and all of the paintings, curtains, sculptures, etc. The left wing of the castle (I believe!?) was the queens chamber. Again it was very large and much more feminine. It wasn’t quite as grand, but I guess they were still sexist when they created it. One thing I noticed about this was that the beds were very short. They seemed to be about 5 feet, which is ridiculously short! Especially for someone like me!!

After we finished the palace, we went to the jardins (gardens). I didn’t think it was possible, but this was even more enormous then the palace. Luckily we went on a day when the fountains were working; however they only were turned on from 3:30-5. This is because the amount of water and electricity used is an abundant amount so they can only turn it on for short periods of time. It wasn’t quite 3 so we walked around the gardens for a bit and grabbed some lunch. After lunch, Jon left us so we could have some free time to tour. We waited until the Water show (as they called it) began and then started to walk around the gardens looking at all the fountains. The gardens were breathtakingly beautiful. It was unlike any other garden I have seen… other than the beautiful garden of my backyard… Just kidding obviously haha! We then went to see the Chaumau de Marie Antoinette. This was a humble cottage for Marie Antoinette for when she wanted to have fun and pretend to poor. (Literally, it was a game for her and friends to take a few days off from their luxurious life and pretend to poor.) However, if that is how the poor lived then I would love to be poor. The cottage was still very large, and the inside was much more conservative and cottage like.  This was very far from the castle and it was almost like its own little village because there were several other smaller houses that were made for servants. It really was so beautiful with all the flowers and animals. Yes, there were even animals. There were several barns with cows, geese sheep, etc. We tried finding out way back to the castle and got terrible lost. Don’t worry though because we ran into the queen’s theater and were able to somehow find our way back. After that we started to head for the exit because the gardens closed at 6:30. On the way out we say the orangerie garden which is an orange garden. This was also just as beautiful.

All in all we spent about 7 hours at Versailles and were not able to see everything. Maybe I took too much staring at everything because it was all so beautiful. After we took the RER home and I got dinner with Paige and Kelsey at a restaurant around champs d’elysee. I tried duck for the first time and had a crepe for dessert; it was all very very good!