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Published: July 16th 2008
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It's the Big Day here in France, and we decided to escape the craziness of Paris for the countryside and Versailles--apparently mirroring Louis XIV's actions about 300 years ago. We managed to negotiate the RER transit system and arrived at Versailles on a glorious blue-sky day--finally!
What can one say about Versailles? "Oppulence to the max," we kept saying about everything we saw, but even that doesn't quite capture it. The Hall of Mirrors was incredible, even by today's standards. We had downloaded a tour (by guide book author Rick Steves) onto our iPods before we left, so we had a great way of understanding and viewing just enough of what could have been an overwhelming experience.
Then there were the gardens, grounds, and smaller palaces. And a little "fairly tale" village that Marie Antoinette had constructed because she longed to escape the overstimulation at the palace (poor baby) to the simpler, more uncomplicated life of the rural peasant--well, not exactly!
When we headed out from the formal gardens towards the rest of the grounds, we were trying to figure out what we were seeing out in the distance along the Grand Canal. (Yes, Louis imported gondoliers from
Venice and had gondolas made so he and his chums could pretend they were in Italy.) Finally, as we got closer it became clear that there were people lining the banks, all dressed in white (apparently what you do on Bastille Day if you're French) having picnics and listening to bands and performing groups or renting boats to go out on the canal. It looked like something from an Impressionist painting...
And at the end of the afternoon, because it was a holiday, there was a special program of Baroque music piped through the gardens, while the fountains were turned on (normally they run only on weekends) and recreated the spectacle that the gardens originally provided. It was amazing to how well a several hundred year old gravity system worked to shoot water out of about 30 different fountains. We were thrilled with the timing of our visit!
We returned to Paris, had dinner at a cafe nearby that we'd heard about from friends--unique because they are known for the 150 BEERS they serve. Trying to continue with my "when in France..." philosophy (as evidenced by my bravely digging into escargot at our first meal here), I had
mussels and frites (french fries to you Americans)--which is typical cafe fare here and was the hugest single portion of shellfish I've ever seen.
We've adopted the French schedule (late dinners, with hunger held off by a late afternoon snack), so we finished up dinner just in time for our Seine River cruise at 10 PM, which we were hoping would coincide with the 10:30 PM "14 Julliet" (Bastille Day) fireworks show near the Eiffel Tower. While on the cruise, along with the landmarks pointed out by the guide, we could also view the Parisians packing the bridges over the Seine and the streets lining it hoping to glimpse the show. The Champs-du-Mars and Trocadero areas near the Eiffel Tower were reportedly body-to-body, evoking 4th of July celebrations back home.
Since the fireworks started later than expected (it was still too light out at 10:30!), we only caught the beginning on the boat. Then we crowded onto the Pont Neuf and watched them from a distance with hundreds of our fellow celebrants. One group even had a cake with candles and sang "Joyeux Anniversaire" (Happy Birthday, same tune) a bit drunkenly SEVERAL times during the festivities.
We
stumbled back to our apartment, exhausted, at midnight--one of the casualties of the "Parisian" lifestyle is a definite reduction in hours spent sleeping :-(--but looking forward to the next adventure...
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