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Published: October 11th 2006
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Sightseeing... Day 2
Morning... I woke up around 5am and just had to get up. That bed is the bed from hell. I was hurting too much to lay there any longer. It turns out Kelley was up too so we headed to the showers which have no water pressure and have to be held onto because they don't stay firm on their own and flop down spraying the wall with what little water they squirt out... Took forever to take a shower. Such a difference from my first trip to Paris last fall... Had a great hotel room, with a bed that felt like sleeping on a cloud, and FANTASTIC water pressure... Oh well... Anyway breakfast is served from 7:15am - 9:30am so at just before 7:15am we were down in the lobby. I have to admit I'm usually not an adventerous eater, but I decided to pass on the fraise (strawberry) and go with plum. Oh boy was that good! Funny color though... Kind of like a booger green...
We left the hotel around 7:30/7:45am for Sacre Couer (Sacred Heart) our first sightseeing trip of the day. It was just up the hill near our hotel.
It was still really dark outside, almost like it should be 3 or 4 am, but we went anyway. I personally didn't want to waste any of our time in Paris! Okay, so here is the fun part... I knew there were lots of stairs to the top... But I had no idea that we would be mounting over 1000 stairs!! Word of advice: wear comfy shoes!! We tried counting all the stairs, but it was useless. I think I got to about 280 before loosing count... I'll get pictures or video up eventually. Anyway after 45 minutes of going up stairs we reached the church and went inside. They open at 6am for services, but the crypts and path to the dome don't open until 8:30am, so since it was only a little after 8am when we got there we decided to explore and take photos in the little town around the church. We ended up getting corned near some cafes by these 3 street artists who drew our portraits. They honestly didn't look anything like us, and I'm sorry Jenn is a thousand times better of an artist. They had the nerve to try and charge us 80
euros for them!! LoL, ridiculous! We all faked no money, and still ended up getting stuck with them for 15 euros each... Still too much in my mind. Its a shame too, mine went home with Kelley and when she moved out she took it with her. 😞 Jenn's looked more like me than mine did! Anyway by now it was about 9am so we headed back to Sacre Couer, went down the stairs, bought our tickets to the Crypts (which were closed) and the Dome. It was only 5 euros to get in, so not a big deal. After what seemed like hours of spiral stairs we finally made it to the top. The passage was narrow, maybe 2 and a half feet wide and spiraled ALL the way. The view was definatly worth the pain we would be in later that night. But anytime we come to stairs now we have to joke about it. We went back into the church, Kelley ended up getting some rosaries. The day was still really young, it was only around 11am, so we dropped off our stuff at the hotel and decided to make our way out of the city to
Versailles.
An Afternoon in Versailles We took the metro to an RER station and from there it was just about 30 minutes to the station at Versailles. We were walking up the main entrance way by noon. We decided to buy the 3 day museum cards for 36 euros. They included many of the places we wanted to go, including ALL of Versailles, which was 20 euros on its own! So I knew we would get our money's worth out of them. I would definantly recommend the museum pass for anyone with more than a few days in Paris. We spent nearly 5 hours at Versailles, going through the state rooms (the king's wing was open this time, but the line was so long we opted to skip it), gardens (over 2,000 acres!), the Queen's Hamlet, the Grand and Petit Trianon. I have to admit I loved the Queen's Hamlet.
[url=http://www.chateauversailles.fr/en/123_The_Queen_s_Hamlet.php
It was built for Marie Antoinette in 1783, as a place for her to get away from the every day life of being a queen.
The Grand Trianon was gorgeous! It was made out of pink marble! It truly is a beautiful building.
Outside was a dead tree that was planted by Marie Antoinette over 300 years ago. We stopped at the little snack bar that I ate at last time, we attempted to eat at the cafe, but the service was horrible, we got seated and 30 minutes later still no waiter... But thats okay because we got fromage sandwiches again, yum! We sat down by the water and fed the really large, really dumb fishies.
Late afternoon/Early evening We finally decided it was time to hop back on the train and head back to Paris around 5:30pm. We got to the monparnesse metro station where we changed from the RER back to the metro, but instead of heading home, we decided to wander around and explore this area of town. We hit a lovely little pastry shop (they are everywhere in Paris). I got a pear tart, that was fantastic! We headed back to the metro to make our way over to Musee d'Orsay.
Into the evening... The Musee d'Orsay used to be a train station. The building was amazing! I wasn't terribly interested in the art, the Louvre is the place to go (in my mind) for artwork. We were only in the museum for a short time, we hit the highlight (in particular the self portrait of Van Gogh). At around 8:45p I realized we didn't have much time to get to the Eiffel Tower for the light show. So we walked extremely fast down the Seine. We didn't make it in time to get a great viewing point, but we could see it over the buildings as we got closer. We decided to hang around for the next show of sparkles. They happen every hour, on the hour for approximately 10 minutes. While sitting on the stairs waiting, we got hot chocolate and chocolate crepes, well crepes with Nutella! Finally around 10:15 we dragged our exhausted butts back to the trocodero station to take the metro back to the hotel. I don't think any of us lasted more than the 15 mins it took to change and brush our teeth... It was a very long, very fun filled day!
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