19th October – Paris – Disneyland … nope, Versailles
The day dawned clear and bright – a perfect Sunday morning in Paris. The morning was taken up with domestic things. I went to buy croissants, juice and bread while the Boy watched the Chinese F1 live at 9am. I was sent out to do the washing too - the race was live, which means live timings on the web, which means no blogging this morning from me. All in all, we had a good morning.
We’d decided to spend the rest of the day in Versailles. The train there was easy and cheap, and finding our way once we got there was easy too – just follow the crowds. And that was the story of the day (the crowds that is). We’d hope that we’d miss the worst of the crowds by being here in late October, and we probably did, but I hate to think what the place would be like in the peak tourist seasons. We shuffled through the chateau with the rest of the people muttering quietly to ourselves that it wasn’t as good as the other chateaux we’ve been to.
Probably the most interesting part (for me) was the Dean Koontz exhibition taking place there. The juxtaposition between the glaringly modern art and the 18th century building and decorations was rather amusing. The Boy thought it was just weird and a bit too distracting. He was hoping for more interesting furniture.
We shuffled, I took photos of beds and gilt.
And the hall of mirrors, which was probably the most impressive bit.
But we were both more enthusiastic about the gardens than anything else. We’d seen tantalizing glimpses through the windows and were desperate to get out of the press of crowds too. Our first hint that they wouldn’t be quite what we expected was the extra charge to get into them – another E8 each on top of the entry fee to the chateau (which was included as part of our museum pass – the gardens weren’t). We thought we should see them though, so we coughed up. They were oddly disappointing. The first thing that hit us was the lack of actual gardens. After Villandry I think we’re a little spoilt! Great vistas, but no real human-sized gardens.
And then there was the music. I think it’s a special thing for the weekends (if only we’d known) – classical music blaring out of loudspeakers around the gardens at rock-concert sound levels. Blergh. We couldn’t hear each other talking, and there was no way we could properly appreciate the gardens, so we figured out where the music was coming from and walked in the opposite direction very quickly. The only thing that would have added to the atmosphere would be people dressed in Marie Antoinette and Louis costumes wandering around posing for photographs. We were unimpressed to say the least.
We walked down the canal away from the chateau and got a good view back up the canal, just in time for the fountains to come on.
They only turn the fountains on three times a day (or so), so we were (I suppose) lucky to see them.
We walked back along the edge of the chateau walls into the town where I had an excellent nut and caramel tart to make up for the disappointment, and the Boy had more Orangina. Ah, Orangina. You might think he’s addicted to croissant, but the Orangina is worse. It’s a orange (duh), mandarin and grapefruit flavoured fizzy drink that he has at every opportunity. We don’t think you can get it easily in Australia, and he’s trying to wean himself off it….
Overall though, we would have been happier staying in Paris for the afternoon walking around some of the streets in our area. But, that said, we always would have thought we’d missed out by not seeing Versailles, so at least we didn’t waste a whole day doing it – we had a good morning!
Dinner was excellent though. As part of my morning shopping I bought some very large hunks of faux fillet. We cut one in half for dinner tonight, and one will be eaten tomorrow night with some salad and some random but excellent wine from the local bottle shop.