Versailles

Our day at Versailles started out really early because I was determined not to wait in line the way that we did at Notre Dame, so we actually left our hotel around 8:30 a.m. We hopped on the RER C, an overland train that goes through Paris, and made it to Versailles by 9:15ish. We didn’t have to wait in line at all to get in, breezed through the line to get an audioguide for mom, and started our tour. (Since I had just been to Versailles with the William and Mary group, I wasn’t interested in an audioguide.) I really got to appreciate the chateau more this time through because it wasn’t nearly as crowded as when I had been a few weeks ago. I was able to stop and admire the incredibly ornate decorations on every surface from the drapes to the walls to the ceiling to the furniture. Mom was also really impressed with the beautiful palace and its history.

We also had the chance to visit the newly-opened Dauphin and Dauphine’s apartments on the ground floor of the chateau. They were not nearly as ornate as the King and Queen’s rooms upstairs, but they were still pretty decked out. I greatly enjoyed the opportunity to go down there since I hadn’t had time on my last visit.

After the Dauphin’s apartments, we popped into the gift store where mom got a cute apron on sale. Then, we headed to the café for lunch, and both of us had sandwiches – mine was chicken, tomatoes, and lettuce on “English” bread as they called it while mom’s was ham and cheese on French bread. Next, we had a bit of a snaffoo trying to get to Marie Antoinette’s Trianon. Normally, you just enter through the gardens behind the Versailles palace; however, for some reason, Tuesdays are special. They are known as “Musical Waters in the Garden” (if you translate it into English), which, incidentally, means that you have to pay to enter the gardens so that you can enjoy the music with colored water in the fountains (???). Sadly, our Paris Museum Passes didn’t count for the gardens – only for the palace and Marie Antoinette’s Trianon – so we had to ask for directions on how to get to the Trianon without walking through the gardens. The man who gave us directions seemed to think that it was fairly close (he said 300 meters), but it was actually more like a mile away. Bahhhh. I was fine walking all the way there, but it definitely put a strain on mom’s already strained back. We did manage to make it to the Petit Trianon in fairly good time.

Actually, it turned out to be perfect timing, because we arrived just as a guided tour was beginning. I gladly asked for tickets for it, because it was free, and mom and I waited for the guide. The guided tour ended up being almost a private tour in the end. In the tour there was us, a French couple, and a family, and that was it! The tour guide was really informative and funny too, and even though the tour was completely in French, mom and I both really enjoyed it. She was able to understand parts of it, and what she couldn’t understand, I was easily able to translate for her as we walked from room to room. The best part of the tour was that it was actually in a part of the Trianon that visitors aren’t normally allowed to go in! When we signed up, we figured it was just a guided tour through the first floor where everyone else was, but it turned out to be a tour of the upper floors, the private rooms, and the entre-sol (where they squished two floors into the space of one floor on the sides of the building for the servants to live in). It was too cool!

On this tour, I feel like I learned a lot about Marie Antoinette and the misperceptions of her. She wasn’t as stupid as people make her out to be, and while she did have the Trianon outfitted for her to stay in and the little village built for her to play in, it was more because she hated the formalities of Versailles than anything else. At the Trianon, all regular manners were put aside (e.g. You didn’t have to stand when she entered the room), and because she was uber-private, you could only visit her at the Trianon if you were specially invited. You had to be handed a secret coin up at Versailles and then present it at the gates of the Trianon in order to be admitted.

After our fancy private tour, we did the regular tour before heading down the winding path through the English garden towards Marie Antoinette’s little village. Unfortunately, the only building available to go into is the dairy, and even then you can only sort of poke your head into it. The outsides of the building, however, were adorable, and there were beautiful flowers everywhere, even on the roofs! There was also a little foot bridge, tiny French gardens, and a cute pond with ducks. I can totally see why she’d prefer to be there than up at Versailles. It’s so much calmer and less pomp-and-circumstancey.

The long walk back to Versailles was just that – long, long, really long – and it was really hard on mom’s back, but we made it to the train station just as a train was leaving for Paris. Mom and I accidentally fell asleep on the train, but luckily, she woke up a few stops before we were supposed to get off, so she woke me up and we were able to get off at the right stop.

We went back to the hotel briefly and then headed out to dinner. We ended up at an Italian place where we were the only people in the restaurant the entire time we ate, with the exception of this awkward teenage dude who came in and ate spaghetti and a Coke by himself in a corner. I had a pesto penne pasta, and mom had a tomato-based pasta. We also split a chocolat liegois for dessert (chocolate and vanilla ice cream with whipped cream, sprinkles, and hot fudge). Yumm! Back at the hotel, we bought 24 hours of internet (yay!) and took turns checking things online – email, facebook, etc. I really miss having regular internet access, and I don’t know how people managed before. How did they know the weather before they headed out? Or how did they check directions to a museum? I guess guidebooks or newspapers? Idk…