Chateau de Versailles

 Saturday of our Paris excursion, we decided to leave the comforts of Paris and head out to 

Chateau de Versaille 

and see this beyond ridiculous Palace, Estate, Smaller palaces and of course Marie Antionette's estate away from the Palace.......and miles of walking around gardens to see statues under repair, crew teams on the man-made lake which was a mile long, and perfectly trimmed trees. And this is exactly why the Palace was originally built. It was a 'refuge' from city/government life, to the country......until all your so-called friends follow you out there to party, then you build a 'smaller' palace to get away from the larger Palace. Rough life right? Well yes when the cost of the palace is more than half of the country's GDP. All the poor people run, clean, cook, decorate (because the queen's room has to be in season.....and that's just her room), care for the children, the grounds and whatever party the King is hosting. No wonder they were bitter and beheaded the King and the Queen.

So we hopped on the train and headed out to the country. We got a little hungry on the way and I pulled out some fruit leather. I handed one to Jeff and ate it no problem. The girl across the aisle had a problem though. I could see her just staring at us, trying to figure out what on earth we were eating that looked a pale green and possibly like something we scraped off the bottom of our shoes and packaged. haha - it was hilarious. I wish I would have offered her one and could understand what she was saying to the other 2 boys she was with.....too funny.

I waited in line while Jeff went to see if we could get in a shorter line with our Museum Pass - no such luck, but the line did move quickly. For good reason - this place is so huge, it would be hard to cap the number of people.

 We listened to the audio guide and toured the main palace.

 a scale model before upgrades.

 This is the entire property - good grief.

 King Louis the 14th

 us and all of our friends. (I'm in the bottom right corner)

 the balcony of the chapel where the King and his family would worship.....all others sat below and watched the King.

 I ordered the LARGE door.....about a quarter of the way through the palace, I started to lose interest, we found food and I was ready for more. Guess my blood sugar was low.

 the Hall of Mirrors - was said that people were so vain they wanted to look at themselves all the time.
This is where the grand parties and dances were held

 more of our friends

 the War room - paintings throughout history of war

 this was in the 1830 room

 The Queen's room. There is a secret door off to the right where the King could enter for a night-cap when he wasn't off with some other woman. What a lovely marriage.....and she would change the decor for every season. The important things in life.

 I lost track of what all the rooms were for or whom they were for.

 The fountain under construction and the path to more gardens, palaces and estates and the man-made 2 mile lake in the shape of an X

 Out to the palace away from the palace

 Game room

 we sat down outside to enjoy the beautiful weather and relax our aching feet.

This was another small modest home (on the main floor)

 pool parlor - this was Marie Antoinette's own 'home'

 somebody was a little snoopy, looking through a locked door.

 We didn't even see the entire place, but it was definitely an experience to be had. We saw where the Treaty of Versailles was signed - war meetings were held and amazing moments in history were had. The train we had planned to use - the track was shut down for an accident. We had to leave the station and find our way to another station.....not many English speaking and the announcement gave no direction on how to get to the next station. We hooked up with another couple from New York and made our way to the new station after asking someone who could only speak French and Portuguese - English and Spanish for us, and English and some Indian for the other couple. We made it though and bonded for that time. I gave them our Rick Steves Paris book and we ended our day at Versailles.