This was a long and exhausting day in Paris. But you really can't beat Versailles. It was crowded, like always, and it was huge, and we got kinda lost but it was still so amazing.
This is Charlotte. She is the cutest, sweetest thing ever. She helped me fill my "missing my kids" void. On this morning we were so matching with our mint dresses, tights, and mint shoes. Oh I could just eat her up!
Kelly lives one freeway stop away from Versailles so she was kind enough to drive us there and drop us off. This is the parking lot where the cars pull up and drop off. Kinda crazy view! I also thinks it is a good perspective of how this "house" literally was a mini city.
This is the outside of the private, albeit massive, chapel.
And you can't beat those golden gates. Very royal and important feeling indeed !
Once we stood in the crazy long line and made it through security you were in the courtyard and I kept thinking about it being full of carriages and horses and what a magical place this is. The room under the clock, aka the best room in the house was King Louis XIV apartments.
The entry way is pretty killer right? I'll take it!
First stop was the royal chapel where all the aristocracy would come to watch the king worship, and basically worship him as well, in the two story private chapel.
There were so many gorgeous hallways with checkered floors and arches forever. It was amazing.
One thing that was different from the last time I went (or we just missed it before) was that there all these paintings of Versailles and what it looked like over the years and how it kept growing and growing. I thought it was very interesting.
Um...think the fireplace is big enough? I'm pretty sure that is a full size tree in there.
This is what we thought was King Louis XIV room but it turns out it wasn't, it was some other king's room. Cool though right?
This bright room that faces east what the Sun King's room. There were SO many people in this room, mostly because multiple school groups were in there. So this is the best picture that I got.
This is mom and me in Marie Antoinette's very floral room.
A good old selfie with Louis himself.
And of course the Hall of Mirrors.
Pictures cannot do it justice. It is massive and bright and glorious. Even though I had been here before it still took my breath away.
This very Louvre-like room was the War Gallery with paintings from all the important wars of France and it was made after the fall of the monarchy when the palace was opened to the public and turned in to a museum.
Here is mom and me outside in the gardens standing in front of the exterior of the Hall or Mirrors.
And the view went on forever. It was hard to grasp the massiveness of it all.
The fountains and the Grand Canal that they made to replicate the Venice Grand Canal. They even imported gondolas and had floating orchestras on this canal.
We had been told by Kelly that the little restaurant down by the boats at the Grand Canal looked so cute and so we walked down to eat there. It certainly lived up to her description. Isn't it so charming?
And I loved the little place mats that were cute cartoons of the restaurant. Oh it was all just so adorable and also really delicious. I got a jambon (ham) crepe and French Onion Soup and they were seriously so good.
There were rows and rows of tree lined paths and I could not get enough of them. I took about a billion pictures of myself in the gardens. But by this time Mom and Jer were just ready to go and didn't really want to take more pictures or walk around the gardens more.
Almost a whole side of the gardens were closed off and when we got to the top we saw this scene with all these people dressed up and found out they were filming some movie in that part of the gardens. I wish we would have found out what movie!
After Versailles we were so so tired. We had planned to take a boat ride on the Seine but that didn't start until it got dark. We walked to try and find our way to the train, but since we hadn't ridden it in, we weren't finding it. We got very lost and stumbled upon a men's clothing store on one random street that turned out to be so awesome. We wanted to buy everything in there for our husbands. The little lady that helped us didn't speak any English and so we pantomimed our way through that shopping experience. Then we kept walking and found another Monoprix and I got Olive a darling dress that she wore as her Easter dress. So even though we got really lost it was still pretty successful. After trying to get back and still not knowing where we were going, we sat down at a bench. Eventually I had the brilliant idea to pull us up on the GPS and we followed our little blinking dot until we found the train stations. By this time we were so so tired but couldn't get out freaking tickets to work for the turn style. So we had to wait in line to buy tickets. Then the train was seriously packed and we were the last to get on so we had to stand on the entire train ride back. Then, we had to go buy tickets for our train ride the next day out to the country and it was the slowest, worst line I have ever stood in. Our legs were aching by the time we got to the boat tour but it was good that we had the extra time to get all that done. We were in such a rush we hadn't eaten so we grabbed a quick sandwich and ate it on the tour.
This was the name of our boat tour. They tell you little facts about everywhere you pass and we really liked it. I would definitely do it again. The only problem was that we sat by all these high school groups with kids that were yelling and waving at everyone we passed and just in general were being annoying. So that part kinda sucked but the tour itself was awesome. And we could sit.
Doesn't the Musee d'Orsay look amazing at night? I can certainly see this place as a train station.
One end of the Louvre
Jer and me being cute.
Notre Dame
This is one of the bridges all covered in locks.
When we went through the Concerigerie we thought it was pretty disappointing in terms of what there is too see. It seems like an old medieval building but that also means it is pretty sparse in inside. I knew it was a former royal residence but still it didn't have much to see. Once we saw the outside from the boat tour our opinion totally changed. It looked like such a cool and, definitely medival, palace.
More of the Louvre.
This is what the boat that we were riding on looked like.
We went all the way down the Seine to the Eiffel Tower and although we had already seen it a whole bunch and even at night we were still in love with it and excited to see it again.
And that concluded our long, long, long but super cool day 7.
