Day 30 - Paris to Barcelona

---

Today we got up early and checked out leaving our stuff at the hotel as we were meeting the boys to go out to the Palace of Versailles. We had to catch the train to one stop, change then catch a different train for about 30minutes out to Versailles.
This place really is grand. Louis XIV turned his fathers old hunting lodge into the largest palace in europe and moved his court here in 1678. It was the royal residence for more than a century until Louis XVI and his queen Marie-Antoinette fled during the Revolution. The palace and the gardens have an abundance of features including the marble courtyard, formal gardens and two smaller palaces outside; the main palaces glorious interior with the Queens bedroom, Salon de Venus, L'Opera, Chapelle Royale and the opulent Hall of Mirrors. Magnificant. We did an audio tour around the main palace before hiring a golf buggy and going down to the others. It was raining otherwise we'd have walked through the gardens as they really were spectacular. In one of the smaller palaces it was set up with remakes of 18th Century clothing that had been recreated by designers like Alexander McQueen.
We jumped back in the buggy to the main palace, returned the cart and made our way out of the area, back to the metro and back toward our hotel. The Champs Elysees leads down from the Arch de Triomphe so we decided to head down there for lunch. Lunch was ordinary but it was again a good chat session and people watching session. We said our goodbyes to the boys as they were heading back to their hotel and we stayed walking down The Champs Elysees a bit longer before returning to our hotel to pick up our suitcases and make our way to the train station to catch our overnight train to Barcelona, Spain.
Our train was at 8:41pm so we got there early to make sure we didn't miss it.
Well, the overnight train certainly was an experience. It was the smallest little from you could get, like 2metres square, ok maybe 2.5 metres square, and there was 4 of us in there with our luggage. Then we had to get the beds pulled down. It was cosy but we were so tired we didn't even care we were spending such a tiny tiny space with 2 others (well 3, one of the woman had a little girl with her).
We got a brilliant nights sleep though.

---