SEMANA SANTA - Paris (Part Three)

Day 3

At this point, I am completely in love with Paris. I am already trying to think of when I can come back. Since we had one whole day left, we had to go to Versailles. I don't think I had any idea how immense Versailles is. The gorgeous redhead and I weren't planning on spending the whole day there, so we could go back to the city and meet our only friend who wasn't coming with us. That plan didn't work at all. We spent almost 6 1/2 hours there and STILL didn't see the whole property. It was gorgeous though. The palace itself was pretty gaudy for my taste, I'm more of a simple have what you need kind of girl. Everything was guilded and painted and fancy, no wonder the common folk went bizwacko when the French monarchy built it. I understand trying to impress people when they come over for dinner or whatever, but is a gold gate really necessary, really?

Giant golden gate

We finally get in after a ridiculous line, and the inside was just as lavish as the outside. It was interesting to visit I guess. When we went to the Hall of Mirrors, I didn't even realize where we were at first. It's not nearly as sparkly and shiny as in the pictures. Somebody should have gotten out the Windex that day. Anywho, I can't say I wasn't impressed by the house itself, but I couldn't help but think it was a bit much. Seriously, French people were starving in the streets and somebody was in Versailles chilling behind their shiny golden gate. Anyway, the palace was nice, but I was much more excited to see the gardens. I was flabbergasted by the size of the garden and the property. From the street it just looks like a giant shiny house, but behind it is gardens about 4 km deep. We had to pay for the palace and the gardens separately (palace was free since we're European students and 7 euros for the gardens), but the 7 euros was completely worth it.

Hall of Mirrors

The Queen's bed?

Right as we entered the Musical Gardens, we sat on the steps and had a quick lunch. The Musical Gardens and the Park are pretty much a giant well manicured maze with statues, fountains, and other peculiarities randomly sprinkled in. The first place we went was the musical pond. Music played from well hidden speakers and as the it played, water from the pond was shot up in patterns to go along with the music. It was pretty cool. After the musical pond, we wandered through the maze-like park and took as many creative/crazy pictures as possible.

View of gardens from the stairs

Musical pond

Creative?

It's not what it looks like, I swear!!

Better : )

This didn't work out as well as we thought it would. Oh well.

 We then decided to head for Marie Antoinette's estate. I thought it was kind of funny that she disliked Louis so much she had her own separate estate on the other side of the property. Talk about marital issues. Of course against my better judgment, we follow our directionally challenged friends who try to go to Marie Antoinette's estate. We ended up back at the front of the gardens. Ugh. So finally, I pull out my handy dandy map to make sure we're going the right way this time. At this point, the estate will be closing in about an hour and her estate was really the only thing I wanted to see. The redhead and I end up  taking a much shorter path than the other directionally challenged friends with us and we have plenty of time to look around. Her estate looks like something out of a fairytale. The buildings had thatched roofs with tulips growing on them. How adorable is that?

Tulips on the roof : )

I really love this picture for some reason : )

Marie Antoinette's house

It was about time for the estate to close so we headed out to meet our friend who didn't come with us that day. Someone in our group decided it would be super fun to visit the Bastille (why, who knows). Most people try to avoid infamous prisons, but whatever. We figure out the right stop (which is luckily named Bastille), but then discover that construction started that day and the stop we needed wasn't open. We just got off one stop earlier and walked in the general direction until we see the building. Only problem is there is no building. My friend didn't realize that the Bastille was mostly destroyed by 1789 and remaining pieces moved to parks in 1899 (I won't lie, I just looked that up on Wikipedia). Pretty much the only thing left there is a commemorative statue.

The Bastille

After our historical site fail, we go to dinner at the restaurant across the street from Notre Dame again. I got salmon and ratatouille, which was super delicious (and finally something French).  After dinner, we head back to hotel to rest up for our travels the next day. One friend and I are going to Amiens to visit my friend from Agnes Scott who's studying abroad there before we fly to Florence the following day.

Overall, I LOVED LOVED LOVED Paris. I loved Paris so much, I signed up for a French class for next semester. I know as soon as I have any time (and money) to visit Europe again, I will be heading straight for Paris. I'm taking a French class so the next time I go to Paris I won't feel completely useless. We mostly stuck to touristy areas because none of us spoke French, but I want to be able to visit the places real French people go. Although it wasn't a problem, I felt kind of bad being in France not speaking a word of French (other than je suis la reine of course).