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Published: September 21st 2009
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Wednesday 9/9/9
Today was the day I’d been waiting for, ever since I saw the movie. “Marie Antionette” and went straight out to buy the biography. Versailles Day.
We walked to Invalides RER station and caught the train out to Versialles. I had read that the tickets would be 16 euro each, and was confused when the ticket machine just said 3 Euro. We asked for help and it seems that was right!
It took just over ½ hour to get to the River Gauche station. We followed the crowds and the signs til we saw the palace! Amazing! Loved the big, beautiful golden gates. We didn’t have to line up, so went straight through security and to line up for our audio guides. I know people find the palace boring, but I loved it and all the stories on the guide. The highlight was the bedrooms. the Hall of Mirrors was stunning!
We walked out through the tremendous jardins. They literally went on forever! We walked a long time to get out to the Grand Trianon and the Petite Trianon. It was amazing to think that I was walking on the very floorboards that Marie walked on herself. We were
exhausted physically but pushed on to see her Hamlet. I am so glad we did. It was one of the most very special places on my whole trip. Imagine creating a false life and your own little imaginary village, just to escape the royal life that was thrown on you.. for your whole childhood in Austria and then even more so from 13 when you are sent away to be the last Queen of France. While we were in the Queen’s estate, I bought one of her favourite cakes to eat.. a Mont Blanc, which is basically meringue, cream and chestnut cream. It was so rich I could only have a little, but well worth tasting! It was magical. Walking back was very hard. We should have taken the little shuttle train and looked after ourselves. I could barely make the arch in my foot work and had to just take it one step at a time. I bought some lovely gifts. I treated myself to a very expensive tapestry cushion, that is a replica of Marie’s bedhead, with her favourite flowers, lilies, roses and cornflowers. It was an exhausting day.
When we got back, we walked down to Rue
Cler to buy some goodies for a picnic under the Eiffel dtower. We bought some nice champagne, some Brie cheese (not edible for us.. way too strong). Unfortunately the deli wasn’t open so we had to duck into the supermarket. As we made it to the tower, the skies opened up enough that it would have been miserable. We took the goodies back to the pretty hotel courtyard and had a picnic there. We were soon joined by Martin, the nightman. He was excellent company and looked after us well. He even brought us out little treats to eat.
We needed to get going to our dinner reservation at 9:30pm at le Florimond. This little restaurant/café was just around the corner from us, and ranked number one on trip Advisor. It was certainly a lovely little place!
Deciphering the French menu was not easy. I basically had “beef 2 ways”. It was soft steak meat, plus a little pot of stewed meat. It was divine and very tender.
Dessert was the best Crème Brulee I have had. Fantastic. We rolled back to bed! Another wonderful day!
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Aussie Annie
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Just like being there!
Hi Lee, just loving your blog and we will be doing a Fat Bike Tour to Versaille end of October when staying in Paris after the Romantic European Tour. Hopefully we will be able to cover the distances a bit easier on bicycles (we catch the train to Versaille) then use our bikes to ride around the gardens, have a picnic lunch and then tour the castle. Just loving your blog, thank you so much for sharing your travels with us. Cheers.