Paris Day 3--- Day of the dead


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July 13th 2011
Published: July 13th 2011
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The last day in Paris. The plan was to go the cemetery Pere Lachaise, then go to the catacombs, and finally end up at Versailles. Well, the plan went of quite successfully. I got up around 8a.m. and took off for the cemetery. While there may be many famous Frenchies buried here, I was only interested in finding the final resting place of one Jim Morrison. After a few circles through part of the cemetery I found his grave (the most visited in all the cemetery; probably making it 2nd to Napoleon in all of Paris... so I claim). There's nothing too exciting about it, but there is a tree right next to it with hundreds, ney thousands of inscriptions on it; mainly lyrics etc etc.. I did not have a pen so I could not leave my mark. After this, I made my 2nd attempt at seeing the catacombs of Paris. Success!! They opened up at 10am, I was in line at 10:30 and still had to wait about 1.5hrs...However, it was worth it. The catacombs lay twice as deep below Paris as the Metro and contain the remains of some 6 million people. Essentially from what I gather, the dead were posing a health problem, and the old mine shafts had plenty of rooms. It was a semi creepy experience, but the only thought I had was how the hell do they keep all these bones from falling over. Flash photography was not allowed, but I did manage a few good pic's. I probably spent about 30min down there until I was off to Versailles..... Versailles is an experience all to itself, and to fully enjoy, you need to spend a whole day there... I got there about 2pm or so, and waited in line for 1hr for a ticket, which allowed me to wait in another line to enter the actual palace (which at one time housed up to 6000 people). However, the gardens at the palace of versailles are extensive and intricate. Im not sure how long it took to create, or the amount of work that went in to creating them, but it must have been a whole bunch. Fountains are all across the grounds, and one in particular, the Neptune fountain has a beautiful display at 5:20 on the weekends (which I was able to see). Apart from this, the best way to describe the grounds is just mazes of huge hedges leading to more flowers and fountains... I finally left Versailles around 6pm or so and made my way back to the Eiffel Tower to see it one last time... It was still just as big and magnificent as the first time I saw it, except this time I enjoyed a chocolate filled crepe... it was delicious... I slowly made my way back to the train station where I proceeded to board the bus around 11pm and arrive in The Hague at 5:45 am and made it to class at 830am... heck of time


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