Versailles? Again? Really?

A long time ago in a country far, far away, we once lived on the east coast of the good ol’ U S of A. Baltimore, MD, to be exact. One of the neat things about living in that region is all the “historical” sites in the vicinity. (Bear in mind that “historical” in the states refers to anything older than my grandparents, whereas in Europe, you need to go back at least a few more generation for anything to qualify!) Anyway, in addition to the near proximity of cool cities like D.C., Philadelphia, New York and Boston (not sure an 8 hour drive counts as “near,” but we’ll include it anyway because Boston is such a dang cool city – except for the traffic. Yikes!) there are also a lot of Civil War sites that are very interesting. We went to Harper’s Ferry, Antietam, and of course, Gettysburg, among others. One of the problems, however, of living in that region is that every single time that someone comes to visit you they want to go see the same blasted things. No, really. EVERY TIME…over and over and over again. Gettysburg is particularly bad that way. We must have driven people out to Gettysburg at least a half-dozen times. It got to the point that we started giving people who were visiting our car keys, the CD driving guide to Gettysburg and telling them that we’d have dinner ready for them when they got back. I’m not exaggerating in the least! Now, what does this story have to do with our trip to Paris? Simply this: Versailles has become Gettysburg to me. Not that either place isn’t wonderful, astounding, and totally worth a visit, but once you’ve been to a place three times it loses some – ok, all - of it’s appeal. The real problem with Versailles is that so many other silly overly rich monarchs tried to copy it that you can see something just as gaudy, over-done and ridiculously ornate in pretty much every country in Europe! So really, in addition to going to Versailles three times I’ve been to so many other palaces that I literally feel that if I see one more gold-gilded boudoir anywhere I’m going to go bananas, leap past the tour guide and start bouncing up and down on which ever silly king’s over-stuffed silk-sheeted bed! Boingy, boingy, boingy! All right – rant over.

We actually drove to Versailles. Being a Sunday morning, we figured traffic wouldn’t be too bad and it would be easier on everyone, especially the kids, than taking the train into Paris and then transferring to another train to get out to the palace. Turns out we were right. We were able to park right by the the palace.

Pretty sweet, really…Here’s the munchkins by the front gate.

                                                                       

Can you imagine the poor pizza guy trying to deliver a deep dish to this place (probably with anchovies, knowing the French)? Ring the bell, wait five minutes for someone to walk all the way to the gate to see who it is only to find out that they didn’t bring any money out with them, so they have to go back and get it. You wait another five minutes and they come back with exact change and then complain that you took more than 20 minutes and the pizza is probably cold. Oh yes, and no tip. Cheap-o frenchies…No wonder the people revolted…

Since my parents were with us and had never been here we decided to go ahead and do one of the guided tours. We actually were able to get the one that goes through some of the rooms that Emma and I hadn’t seen before, including the inside of the chapel. Here’s some pictures:

As you can see, ridiculously ornate, but also very beautiful. My favorite part of any palace is usually the grounds/gardens. Versailles is no exception. Unfortunately, since it was November, not much was in bloom and the fountains were all turned off. Yeah, ok. Nothing was in bloom. But we still got the obligatory family picture with the palace in the background!

Still, the grounds are incredibly extensive and beautiful, even in the late fall. There are all sorts of gardens, tree-lines walkways, a big lake where you can get paddle-boats for a ridiculous amount of money, and very over-priced low quality tourist food. The kids always love running around palace grounds, and we let them…as long as there aren’t too many people close by…

After walking entirely way too much and even seeing one or two of the little “cottages” out in the grounds (which are about as big as my entire apartment building), I think the kids had had enough. What do you think?

Good-bye, Versailles…at least till someone else comes to visit and wants us to take them to Paris…