Versailles « Wonder Wife & her personal ramblings

Versailles

Posted in Travel by wonderwife on September 23, 2008

So….I have found that after Dalin waits for me to get ready in the morning, he gets really restless if I ask for more time to blog. BUT, I made a deal with him that if he’s not going to let me blog, then he has to write it for us while I get ready. It’s works out because it gives him something to do when I get ready (The TV is in French so that can’t occupy him) and we don’t miss days of blogging. YAYY hahaa

We are way behind but we’ll be catching up now that we’re in Switzerland and we have time to relax. Here is a slimmed-down cliffs notes version of our day in Versailles…I posted a few pics here but my favorites of Versailles are in the last.

I really didn’t know what to expect of Versailles. I had heard everyone say it was really big and beautiful, I knew that many important things had transpired here, Louis XIV, Marie Antoinette, Treaty of Versailles…etc. I think at one point we were thinking of skipping it…WHAT A MISTAKE THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN. It is hard for me to even describe the scale of this place. When we arrived in Versailles it was a short walk (about a block or so) to the gates of the Palace. I felt like we were going to Disneyland. It was crazy, kind of like we had just walked into the gates from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Willy Wonka was going to come out on a red carpet.

We started the tour with the Chapel. King Louis had this Chapel built for he and his entourage to attend mass everyday. This is the only area of the palace that is an homage to someone (God) other than Louis himself. It is a grand room, bigger than most churches, with gold everywhere and massive columns. From there we went through many rooms of the palace: the drawing room, the war room, the King and Queens chambers, the Hall of Mirrors (my favorite room)….tons of rooms.

Chapel

Chapel

It is said that they created whole industries just to furnish the Palace, and it cost nearly half the GNP of France to build the Palace of Versailles. It was awesome.

One of the many fountains in the gardens

We took a break after we toured the palace before we came back to tour the gardens and the whole lunch experience was crazy. We had to walk what seemed like forever to get to this restaurant Chrystal had read about. We finally got there and realized that they didn’t open for like 2 more hours!!! AAAAAHHHGGGG! All the restaurants are pretty much closed from 2pm -7pm. We were not aware of this….they are open for drinks…but not food. Needless to say we have become very used to stopping and drinking beers and wine or eating baguettes. They have a lot of small meals here.

We finally did end up eating steaks and yep…you guessed it FRENCH FRIES!!!! Ah man…I am so over eating French fries…hahaha! Hopefully we will find some better restaurants soon. By the time we got back home it was late and we considered going out to a club, but decided to catch up on some sleep instead.

We have so much more to update you on so we’ll write soon. We love you all – Chrystal & Dalin.

If anyone is considering going there, definitely do it!! It’s really amazing, you’ll love it.