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Published: November 7th 2012
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Our day started early with breakfast in the hotel, and then off to the metro to get out to Versailles when it opened. It's about an hour from the hotel on the train, so it was a good sight seeing journey in a double decker railcar. The sky was blue and no sign of clouds so we had some good luck with the photos today. Once the train arrived at Versailles, we walked the five minutes from the gare and were soon face to face with a monster known as Versailles. My first thought was, I don't remember it being so big. I remember my first trip to Versailles thinking, I understood why they had a revolution, it was just so big. So, to the gate we went and got our tickets and then off to the palace. There are many rooms open to the public and there was a lot of public there to see. We found out the hard way that a lot of the bus tours show up early in the day. As we would go room to room, we found we had to ride out the waves of people coming through the doors. After a minute or
so, the room would calm down, we would get our pictures, then move on to the next room, wait out the rush, and move forward again. Once we finished in the palace, we went outside to the garden. There were a few fountains we remembered from our last visit in 2006 that we wanted to see. Although they are shut down now for the winter, the sculptures still look amazing. It took us about four hours on the grounds in total, so we were back in Paris around 230pm. With the day being so sunny, we decided to give Notre Dame a second look as the we have our SLR camera with us now, which we did not have in 2006. The wait to get to the top of Notre Dame was about 25 minutes, and the walk up the steps was crazy insane. But the view, made it all worthwhile. It's about 60 metres up, so we had great uninterrupted views all around the left bank and up to Sacre-Coeur. We even had a bit of luck as they had the top of the top open, so we went to a place we could get no higher. That of
course, also meant more steps for the trip down. So, with our step workout done for the day, and still some hours of light left, we decided to make the metro trek to Sacre-Coeur and check out the view from the big hill. It was a long walk up some mountain-like hills once we left the metro station; but once we made it to the top, the view was incredible. The sun was starting to set and was leaving some great light on the church. We got a pass for the dome at the top, so we started our next stair workout. 300 steps later, we were at the dome, the sun had gone red, and was really starting to drop fast. It was a great sunset and we managed to get it all in. We were back downstairs as it got dark, and manged to get a little entertainment as all the hawkers got a bit of a scare from the police. Now we know why they lay everything out on blankets, because as the police rolled around the corner, the blanket corners were grabbed. All we saw next were a bunch of dudes running for the bushes with
some very big loot bags. After that, we decided to head back to the hotel. We figured very quickly what metro line to take, then headed in a direction we thought would work. Well, one right turn, one left turn, and suddenly we were in front of the Moulin Rouge, and all the wonderful seedy shops around it..hehe. But, we did get our metro station. And so back to the hotel we go. As we changed trains at the Eiffel Tower, Penny remembered seeing the mini statue of Liberty in the river just a bridge before the station. So, with a little energy left, we made one final search for one of our elusive sights. It only took 15 minutes and we found her, though she was lacking a little light. There were lamps set up to brighten her in the night, but for some reason, they were off...hmmm. So, that being done, we headed back to the train, and then finally, back to the hotel. A meal was had, an attempt to organize a few hundred photos, and then finally someone crashed. She got Paris, like she wanted, and now its time for a change. You are all given a break from reading now as tomorrow is transit day. Where to next, only a few know, and even fewer are speaking about it. Will write more once we find some WiFi.
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Jan
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Left Hanging
Are you there yet? Are you there yet? (Yes, I can be an annoying child). Here I am sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for the next piece of the puzzle. Love your photos.