Versailles

See an album of our photos from Versailles.

Friday, Sept 30

We slept in, planning to visit a nearby Indian buffet for brunch, but it didn't open at 11am as advertised, so we had to check out of our hotel first, and we wound up returning to same café as the past two days, but this time we got the full breakfast with omelets!

We hauled our luggage to Porte Maillot, at the northern tip of the largest park in Paris. Jessie did homework at a park bench while I explored the park on foot and by Velib rental bike. Then I sat with luggage while she went for a walk... much to my surprise, she not only walked to the Arc de Triomph, she also went inside it to the room at the top!

We accidentally took a train the long way round to Versailles, so what should have been a 20 minute trip took more like 3 hours, but we weren't in a hurry! We checked into an Airbnb with Tom. The room was nice, although Tom was a heavy smoker, and the trains went practically right by the window, and Tom's Wi-Fi password made reference to ISIS, which was troubling... but compared to the 9th floor disaster, it was quite nice!

Saturday, Oct 1

We had breakfast in a corner café near Tom's apartment, then walked through town to the palace of Versailles. The line to enter was quite long. We followed along with an audio tour of the king's quarters, public spaces, war murals, and a special exhibit on the American revolution and the role played by Versailles as a location for signing the treaty. I had been unaware that the revolution was ended by a Treaty of Versailles as well as WWI; there was strangely little mention of the latter Treaty.

We spent the afternoon exploring the extensive gardens, Marie Antoinette's palace, and Trianon, the palace where Louis XIV entertained his mistress. We somehow managed to walk back to Tom's after being on our feet all day, stopping at an Indian restaurant for dinner.