Juli’s highlight of our stay should be seeing and experiencing something new, so we/she decided we’ll spend our saturday at Versailles. Right after getting up, we headed for Inform cafe, on our way to the regional train – the breakfast was enjoyable and gave us the (later we knew necessary) strength boost into the day.
Following the metro to Saint Michel, we took the regional express train directly to Versailles Gare Rive Gauche. The probably most touristic transport vehicle we’ve ever seen with the famous hall of mirrors decorating our wagon ceiling. Plenty of others (mostly Germans) went the same way, even though the weather was not perfect and we were welcomed by drops of rain after we disembarked the train.
At Versailles we started exploring the gardens – an incredible vast areal. Some guests around us focused on the electric carts to take the tour, we decided to enjoy this on foot. The multitude of basins and installations, most of the time accompanied by music from sources that remained (mostly) hidden elevated the experience through the rain. At Neptun’s garden Juli mistook a lovely 75 years young lady for a volunteer, later to be understood as canadian visitor.
After our first tour (approx. 3 hours) we got in the queue for our slot to visit the palace. There we moved through the various imperial rooms with beset purpose. We got a glimpse into the development of Versailles, starting from a simple hunting estate, the different owners it had over the centuries who all left their mark on it and the importance it has today for various state visits. With large (and sadly loud) groups of tourists we marched our way through a long arrangement of rooms for representation, audiences, dining, sleeping, tea drinking and also amusement and gaming. The promised highlight was the Hall of Mirrors, a long corridor (a former terrasse) connecting the King’s rooms with the Queen’s rooms, with mirrors from floor to ceiling on one side and windows facing the gardens on the other. Combined with the oppulent golden decor this created the illusion of an endless, bright and shining hall which symbolised the richness and power of Louis XIV. Physically exhausted and mindblown by the dimensions of Versailles we left the estate after nearly 5,5 h. Juli said, she could live here for a week and would enjoy to come every day and explore every corner of the estate 🙂
In the evening we managed to meet with my dear friend from the french entity who proposed a magnificent (and closely available) place for dinner – the Creperie du Marche – where we celebrated a Salade Gourmande (Juil) and a Galette with tuna and onions (Markus) as well as a crepes Suzette and Tatin (apples and icecream) accompanied by lavish Cidre.
Then it was time for our main program point, back to the gardens and into the queue for the premier evening of the Night Fountains Show. All of the fountains had transformed into small light and music supported spectacular locations. In the middle of the crowd we found Virginia again – the little 75 year old Lady from Canada, who would accompany us for the rest of the evening together with my colleague Patricia. At the end of the night we saw Versailles in flames, enlighted by hundreds of fireworks and flames. A maginificent ending of a great day!
Well, the return back to Paris was a bit tiresome – trains were no longer working, so we had to squeeze into a tiny bus – wait for 20min until the line L appeared at the next train station and in Paris we took another bus to finally arrive at our quarters at 1.15. We fell asleep very quickly after a long day with roundabout 24.000 steps…