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Published: September 7th 2017
Geo: 48.8566, 2.35097
Since I was so sick yesterday I had gone to bed at 9, didn't wake up till 10 this morning! Felt much better though I still have a cold. Everyone else was still in bed so that is when I grabbed the netbook and started yesterday's blog that I just finished ;-) I guess everyone else except for Joseph stayed up till 11:30 and the gay pride parade went down our street and Carlie got a video of it. They didn't know what it was at the time but I had heard they were having one before we left and I assumed we would be avoiding it since the plan was for us to be gone till 12 or 1 am but the plans changed.... what I didn't know was that the parade was going down our street! So we may be posting some videos that the kids have taken if we have that ability with our blog.
One of Joseph's very few "to do's" was a visit to the Ferrari store, he has been regretting not buying something in the store we went to in Rome, we couldn't find out where it was this morning so he decided
we should go to Fontainebleau, good! because I had wanted to go but really want this trip to be fun for him too. So we left the apt about 1 ish?? made our way to Gare de Lyon and took the RER D to Melun (fortunately chose the right one and not the one that takes a big detour...) got off in Melun as I thought we were to take the bus from there, found a very helpful French woman that didn't speak English and she explained with sign language and a couple of words that a train would take us from here. Well, we go and another friendly person shows us where the train would be to take us to Avon-Fontainebleau. When I wrote the directions down I had known to look for this station to get off at but was a bit confused as the website didn't mention taking the RER to Melun but the main train and anyway confusion is just part of my traveling style I guess. Thank the Lord for sending nice, friendly, helpful, people to steer this person where she needs to go! We get on the train and then find the bus to
Our Stairs
These stairs make your thighs cry!!take us to the chateau, we get off right at 4:15 in front of the chateau! It took us 2 hours to get there! I had thought it was supposed to take 1... we did have to wait in Melun for an half an hour for the train.
We were immediately impressed by the exterior, WOW! Went in, got an audio guide for 1 euro, stored the backpack for another 1 euro and started our tour. Fantastic and amazing history, it was first mentioned in writing in 1137 that is how old this is. Started as and was considered a "hunting lodge", well it doesn't look like any hunting cabin we know of in Washington or Idaho ;-)
This is definitely worth a second visit if I go again will get there first thing in the morning and take any guided tours they will take my money for as we only saw a tiny, tiny fraction of the chateau on the regular tour you take with your audio guide. They were really herding people out as they wanted to close it down on time... so we left took a peek at Diana's garden then caught the bus back to the
station, was faster back to the station than getting to the chateau as they didn't stop nearly as much. We went in the front door of the train station and the sign for the train to Paris was right in front of us, we went through those doors and the line was right there, the train came about 10 minutes later. It only took 45 minutes to reach the Gare de Lyon station!! hmm, will try to do it like this next time, if there is a next time.
Have been using the Paris Museum Pass and the Navigo Decouverte Metro pass (good Mon-Sun), so the trips to Versailles and Fontainebleau have been covered by the zone 1-6 pass, it expires today so it was most economical to take the trip today instead of in our remaining days. Tomorrow we will be recharging our card for the next week but will only put on enough euros for zones 1-2 or 1-3 depending on where we want to go. It has been very handy as we don't have to keep track of little tickets when we want to get on and off, it also would have allowed me to use the
train station toilette if it had been working. Joseph only had to buy the metro pass, since he is under 18 he gets into all the museums for free, very nice!
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Parents
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Greetings, So glad,to hear you are feeling better. How's everyone else on the trip? We are thouroughly enjoying reading the childrens descriptions,please continue.So thankful for helpful,kind people and Guidance. Continue to stay safe
and enjoy yourselves.Love,