Paris Day Nine

This post is especially for Ashley Behnke.  Here you go Ashley, a whole day on Versailles.

You can guarantee that I won't be checking out McDonalds in Paris, but this morning we did get up and hit the train a little earlier than normal to get to Versailles and there was a Starbucks as we got off the train... so here you go.  The same coffee, atmosphere, and smells with french music and better pastries.

It was actually a nice day, considering it was supposed to rain all day.  But, we had some rain showers and lots of clouds and wind, so keep that in mind as you enjoy the pictures and witty commentary.  I took a lot of pictures today.  You could take pictures anywhere, that is if you could get past the people, but no flash inside.

Versailles was interesting, beautiful, and at times frustrating.  So read carefully, I'm going to give some pointers in case you ever visit.  Since it would apparently be way too helpful to make these tips obvious to visitors on their website or via signs.

This is the line, we stood in this morning, and that is with the Paris Pass we bought that is supposed to help you skip lines!  Yes, it is as long as it looks.  The end of the line is the far left of the picture.

HINT 1!  A really neat part of the many chateaus in France is the gardens are usually free.  All the gardens at Versaille are free.  So, go ahead and buy your tickets, but go to the left of the long line in the morning and go straight through to the gardens.   Enjoy the gardens fully, including the Grand and Petit Trianon buildings, and go back to the main Chateau building toward the end of the afternoon.   You'll have to show your tickets at the Grand and Petit Trianon buildings. There will still be a ton of people inside the house, but at least there won't be a line to get into the Chateau.

We had planned to head out to the gardens right away, and found out our line wait was a waste, 4 hours later when we came back.  You can spend hours in the gardens.  We spent a little over 6 hours at Versaille and about 5 of those were in the gardens and other buildings, outside the main house.

If you want to follow along, you can find an interactive map of Versaille and it's gardens, here.  This first picture is the South Parterre.

 Next, we have the Orangery and Swiss Lake.

After about 1 km of walking, depending on how much winding through the gardens one does, you get to the top of the Grand Canal.  The canal begins with the Apollo Fountain.  You can't tell from here but the Grand Canal is about 2 km long.  There are even boats you can rent.

HINT 2!  Again, I would guess half of the people that visit the estate never get beyond the Chateau.  Come with your walking shoes on and really enjoy the estate.  There are restaurants and areas you can get food to have a picnic.  You could also bring your own food I think!

This is the view from the top of the Grand Canal back toward the Chateau.  There is never a lack of statues!

The first building we went in was called the Grand Trianon.  This building was built by Louis XIV to escape the pomp of the court.  It was mostly the kings home.  This was a pretty building, mostly done in marble.

The rooms were simpler than the large chateau, but still worthy of royalty.

The next building we enjoyed was the Petit Trianon.  This building is connected to Marie Antoinette, as it was her favorite building and is known as the Queen's home.  It had a very cute music room.

I also enjoyed the billiard's room.  Both the Grand and Petit Trianon's had Billiard rooms.

The grounds surrounding these buildings were beautiful.  There are many colors and varieties of tulips, plus lots of flowering trees, including the lovely constant smell of lilacs.

The gardens were amazing but then we came upon our favorite area.  On the map it's called Queen's Hamlet.  But it consists of the farm part of Versailles!  The gardens here were a mix of vegetables and flowers; the buildings were so cute; and there were all sorts of animals, such as cows, sheep, goats, ducks, chickens, and more.

The Mill.

The Queen's house, look for the tulips growing out of the roof!

This is another building, that is just pretty, although I'm pretty sure those stairs aren't safe any more.  We adore these purple flowering trees, they seem to be able to be trained as both a tree or a vine.

Note, we still aren't very good at taking pictures together,without having to concentrate to hard on holding it straight and pushing the button!  I've given up carrying my camera, my phone seems to be taking pictures just fine.

Every building was surrounded by vegetable gardens all in different stages of growth.

There was an herb garden, complete with lots of dill and thyme; both are common herbs here.

Don't forget the rhubarb!

This small amount of pictures can't give any serious demonstration of the extreme number of sculptures in these gardens and throughout the chateaus.  Kim and I have determined if you were a painter or sculpture from the 1600's through the 1800's you were kept very busy in France!

Finally we are headed into the actual Chateau of Versaille!  I didn't take a lot of pictures because the people were very overwhelming.  Tons of tour groups.  The inside of Versaille is beautiful,  There is a lot of marble and stone and the ceilings and walls are often painted, not draped in fabric like other chateaus.  This chateau was lived in by king's until Louis XVI and Mary Antoinette were dragged out and later killed by their public.  After that kings and queens used the Trianon houses, but the Chateau has been used as a museum since the 1800's.

Following are a couple of the painted ceilings.

An example of a wall...

After taking the train back to town and walking toward our apartment, we decided to have dinner in this lovely cafe right below us.  I love these simple meals.  Everything they serve in the cafe,down to the wine is organic.  Right up my alley!  This was a warm potato, artichoke, and cheese dish with a country ham tartine on their fresh made organic rye.

I finished dinner tonight with a lovely Raspberry tart.

I am finishing this post with a call out to my Orth cousins, from whom Ashley derives.....  I think of you all every day, as every day I hear accordion music.  For those that don't know, my Uncle Cliff played the accordion.  The accordion is a very traditional french instrument and many of the French folk songs are played on it.  It's very common on the street and on the trains to have someone playing the accordion and looking for money.  So we'll end today, with a song I've heard many times already, enjoy by clicking on this link to open a YouTube song.

Paris Day Eight

Bonsoir.  Day eight has been kind of a hump day for us with bouts of low energy.    This post may be more pictures than words as the bed is in my view.  Also, I must say it is a little stressful to get home late and try to do a blog post that doesn't overuse adjectives and is spelled correctly.  This audience has high expectations of simply trying to keep in touch!

We slept hard last night and got up and were out the door by 10 AM.  That doesn't sound early, but I haven't fully adjusted to the 8 hours, only about 5 hours.  That means most often I am up until midnight or 1 AM and sleep until 9 or 9:30 AM.  That just makes it easier to adjust when I head back!

We headed directly to the Musee de Louvre this morning.  The amount of people was amazing.  There are definitely more people this week, apparently May started the serious tourist season. 

On the way we passed this sculpture of Joan of Arc.

The Louvre has a large glass triangle sticking up, here is the top of it from the ground.  This is actually the entrance.

Here is the view from below, pretty cool.

The Louvre allowed people to take pictures without flash, but people just ignore the rules.  I think they should act like ski hills and if people go out of bounds kick them out!  To show that I'm not exaggerating about the people here was my view of the Mona Lisa... no flash!

I did enjoy the sculptures area of the Mona Lisa, including the Marly Horses by Guillaume Coustou.

After the Louvre, we stopped for a cafe in the Tuileries Gardens.

The Museum de l'Orangerie was next.  We enjoyed this museum.  This museum showcased Claude Monet's Water Lily series.

After the Musee de l'Orangerie, we walked down the Seine toward Ile de la Cite.  A pretty walk.

Here is a view of the end of the Ile De La Cite and the bridge, Pont Neuf.  This is an island in the Seine and Notre Dame and Ste Chapelle are on this island.

We were headed for Ste Chappelle, but the line was too long so we walked up to the Jardin du Luxembourg.  jardin = garden  The gardens were beautiful and so full of people.

Statues everywhere with flowers.

The Palace of Luxembourg is on one end,

and the rest is structured garden.  Some areas have ponds with fountains; some grass people can sit on and was covered in people and other grass has chairs all around it.  There are tennis courts, boci ball courts, people everywhere sketching and drawing, and a huge kids area.

After the gardens we found a very nice Brassiere (bar and restaurant) to eat a simple dinner, that consisted of a nice French beer  and a Salmon Tartine and salad for me.

Tonight we took the metro home.  One still has quite a few stairs on each end of the metro and another 4 blocks, but it was better than the 1 1/2 miles added onto our already high total for the day.  Au Revoir.

Paris Day Seven

As you can guess, we slept in a bit this morning after getting home at 2 AM.  We started the Museum tour today.  We had purchased a six day pass called "The Paris Pass".  This pass starts the day we first used it and we wanted to wait until after yesterday's holiday.  The pass not only gets us into museums and sites, but lets us bi pass the lines in many places.  It was gray and rainy again today, a good day for museums!

This afternoon we started the Pass at the Musee d'Orsay.  Many museums don't allow pictures inside, and most of you know my penchant for following the rules, so don't be surprised if there are no pictures of the insides of museums.  Orsay is located in the railway station built for the 1900 Universal Exhibition.  It's a beautiful building and it had very good exhibits of many impressionist painters, including Monet, Manat, and Renoir.    There was also a large Degas exhibit.  The following sculptures were outside of the Musee d'Orsay.

After Orsay, we walked to the Rodin Museum.  I really enjoyed the sculptures of Rodin.  The museum was in an 18th century mansion with beautiful gardens.  This museum didn't mind pictures, they just asked that you didn't use a flash.

Here's the quiz part of our day.  What kinds of flowers are these, that are found in the gardens of Rodin's Museum?

 

Some of my favorite Rodin sculptures include:  The Thinker

The Kiss

The Cathedral

On our way home we had a cup of tea and shared the below beautiful cake at a local cafe.  The cake was wonderful.  Kim and I are both enjoying the pastries and sweets and part of it is, they aren't so sweet!  They don't seem to use near as much sugar.  This wonderful butter cake had a tart yogurt sauce over it that was ideal.

I best not forget our stop at Pierre Marcolini on the way home.  We obtained a small box of macaroons and some orangettes.  Mmmmm, the macaroons are yummy.  They come in many flavors.  They flavors I chose were Lemon tea, Cassis, Pistachio, Chocolate covered Violet, and chocolate.  So far Lemon Tea is my favorite.  They colorful macaroons are everywhere in Paris and they were easy to resist until we realized how amazing they are.  They are soft and a little gooey in the middle and crisp around the outside.

Tonight we just snacked for dinner on some fruit, hummus and a small raisin and hazelnut baguette from the bread place downstairs.  Perfect followed by Macaroons!  With all this gorgeous food people wonder how Parisians stay slim.  It's called movement!   Everyone is walking and biking everywhere.  Even if you take the metro, there is a lot of walking within the metro stations and above ground.  So I'll leave you today with that thought - movement!

Paris Day Six

I'm counting these by full days, really I had arrived 7 days ago.  This was shocking to me, because it meant I only have one week left!  But, I'll try to chase that scary thought from my head and write an appropriate update for you.  Day six was an interesting day. 

As you'll remember, May 1 is a holiday in France, their labor day.  Most of the museums and attractions were closed, so we decided this would be a good day to do a Moulin Rouge show since it was open.  We made reservations on Monday for the 11PM Tuesday night show.  There are only two shows a night and the first is a dinner show.

Moulin Rouge is a famous nightclub that focuses on big cabaret shows.  It has 60 dancing girls, many dancing guys, and most famously, elaborately sequined and feathered costumes with little to nothing on top.

Knowing this was going to be a late night, we had to still decide how to spend the day.  We got up and went for a walk looking for comfortable shoes and socks for Kim.  No such luck as all stores were closed, but we did find demonstrations, parades, and croissants!

Only a couple blocks from our house, there was a large parade, but it was just people marching; no floats or anything.  The marching seems political, but without being able to fully read the signs, we think it mostly has to do with the recent political elections for president.

On the way back to the apartment, we finally found an open patisserie and snagged our first morning croissant and chocolate croissant to have with a second cup of coffee and tea.

We left the house for the second time around 1 PM, hoping we had everything we would need for the next 12 hours.  We knew it was warm, but we would be walking home late at night. 

First, we headed to the Sacre Couer to get some pictures in the sun, and views of the city.  We were worried that the clouds would come in, later afternoon, but they never did.  It was our most beautiful weather day so far!

Being back in the Montmarte area, we wondered the streets, up and down the hills for the afternoon and evening.   We had lunch on the sidewalk at a little cafe.  I enjoyed a French beer with lunch called, Affligem.

The streets near the Sacre Couer were packed, but the ones off the main square were beautiful.

Montmarte is known for their artist community and the square near Sacre Couer is packed with artists all wanting to draw or paint you and/or sell their paintings of the area.  Kim and I would both get a bit overwhelmed with all the people so we alternated between the busy and quiet streets.

We took a break in a part full of kids playing at one point and for dinner we enjoyed yet another new experience.  We had a Raclette meal.  This type of meal is more from the Chamonix/Alps area of France.  They have a little grill on your table and you grill meat and melt cheese to go with your bread and potato.  It was interesting and a good way to pass the evening until the show.  Finally it was time for the show.

We both really enjoyed the Moulin Rouge show.  You couldn't take pictures in the theater, but we were right next to the stage.  Literally, there as no one between us and the stage in a room of about 500 people.  Lots of feathers, sequins, singing, and dancing.  Even a tank full of live snakes - of which neither Kim nor I were too fond!  We are really glad we made that part of our stay and enjoyed our stroll home.  I want to note that we got home at 2 AM, and yet felt perfectly safe walking the streets of Paris that late in the evening, or early in the morning depending on your view.

Another successful day in Montmarte.