Paris, France – September 15, 2012

I do not think we were awake when our heads hit the pillow last night, we both slept soundly after being on the go for so long yesterday.  The room was very quiet, only occasionally interrupted by the faint sound of the subway underneath the building.  It is just a subtle rumbling noise, almost anything else drowns it out.  However, if you try hard, and all is quiet, it is audible.

We woke up at about 6:00 AM local time, at least I did.  Stephanie was still sound asleep so I worked on the blog.  Her sleep was finally disturbed by the sound of the alarm at 7:00 AM.  We had planned an early morning start to go to Versailles, but this morning, we just had a hard time getting everything together, including ourselves.  The fatigue and time change just gets to you for the first couple of days.  Once we were finally ready, we realized it was already 9:00 AM, and we were just leaving the room to hunt (literally) for some breakfast, and the ever hard to find, American coffee.  We stopped off at a pastry store we had seen yesterday, and ordered a croissant for Stephanie, and a chocolate filled pastry (similar to a flat croissant) for me.  They had an “American coffee” to go”, but it was just a small Styrofoam cup, filled about two thirds with really strong, brewed by the cup, coffee from an espresso machine.  It was strong, but good and hot.  We sat outside of the Notre Dame Cathedral on a bench and ate our breakfast, the metro stop we needed was right around the corner for the train to Versailles.  We can attest to the fact that the Asian tour groups win the award for the earliest start, we saw two tours heading to the Cathedral while we were eating our breakfast, and no other tours were stirring anywhere in the area.

We had a little trouble purchasing our tickets for the train to Versailles, all of the unattended metro/train ticket machines in Paris only take coins, no bills, and most of the time, no credit cards.  We only had Euro bills, so we headed back up to the street level to seek a kind vendor for change.  The first place Stephanie tried refused to give us change, just after giving change to a non-American tourist (those Frenchies… they love Americans) .  We finally purchased a postcard for 0.20 Euro with a 5.00 Euro bill to get change from one of the vendors.  It was ironic because by the time we found a vendor to purchase a small, inexpensive item from, solely for the purpose of acquiring some change, we were almost to the next Metro.  Once we went down the stairs for this station, we realized it was fully attended, and we no longer needed the change. Oh well, always a lesson to learn while traveling.

We purchased our two return tickets to Versailles on the RER Yellow Train, then headed to the platform to try and figure out exactly which train we needed.  The Yellow RER train has several splits in the route, which is not typical, so there are 3-4 different trains that go on the various route splits, and you need the correct one to go to your destination.  We needed the one called the “Vick”.  After about 10 minutes, it arrived at the station, and once aboard, off we went.  There was no issue with determining where to get off, the Versailles stop we needed on this train was the end of the line.

We arrived in Versailles and started over to the Chateau.  We thought it was “free” museum day, but apparently, the Versailles attractions were not on the totally free list.  Everyone was buying tickets, and we (Stephanie) even asked.  The lady at the airport had apparently led us astray on the “free attractions for Paris list.”  Now it was too late, and we had already spent money on entrance fees to both the Louvre, and to the Arc de Triomphe, both which would have been free with the Paris Card.  We  figured we were about to break even on the cost of the Paris Card versus entrance fees so far.  If the other museums we want to visit tomorrow are not free, we will then be  penalized a little financially.

Due to our late start, we actually were first hand witnesses to attest that the tour books are correct, do not try and visit the Versailles Chateau in the morning if you do not get there early, with early being when it opens.  It was generally a crowded mess, full of large tour groups who had arrived in buses, crammed into the many small rooms of the Chateau.  Groups of Asians over here, Mideast groups over there, throw in a British group here and there, and you get an international  crowded disaster.  In the end, we found that since we had visited two palaces in Vienna two years ago, the Versailles Chateau and grounds were not nearly as impressive as those had been.

The exhibits in the Versailles Chateau paled in comparison to its Austrian counterpart in Vienna.  There were some interesting sights inside of the Chateau, but in general, the crowds really impaired our ability to see the various rooms.  Shame on us for getting off to a slow, late start.

One interesting thing happened to us while going through security for our entrance into the Chateau.  The security x-ray screening operator actually informed us that tripods are not allowed into the exhibit, and we needed to check the tripod at the free baggage claim area.  Since it was crowded, and they were busy at both the x-ray machine and the baggage check, we decided that they would not know if we just skipped by and headed inside.  We were right, we slipped away without being noticed.  We have never visited a sight where tripods were considered a security threat…..until now.

We knew we would not use the tripod inside the Chateau, it was way too crowded.  But, we had thought that once we headed out into the Gardens, which is a separate entrance  ticket from the Chateau, and where visitors could enter there directly, without visiting the Chateau and not going through the security screening, that using the tripod would be OK.

Wrong, we were busted using the tripod to take pictures outside in the vast gardens, and a security person came up and told us it was not permitted.  Go figure…we are still trying to determine the big threat.  However, it was confirmed later as we saw another couple get busted by security for the same tripod violation.

We walked through the vast gardens down to the lower area where there is a large man-made lake for small row boats to paddle around in, which of course, were available for rental.  This part of the grounds is actually a park outside of the attraction, and is free to enter, and also does not need to comply with the tripod security directive.

Therefore, being ever vigilant to the rules, we set it up and got a couple of shots of both of us together, looking back up at the Chateau.

We stopped at a restaurant for some lunch, and our communication with the waiter was less than perfect.  We thought we ordered two sandwiches, some fries, and two large glasses of wine.  We got the two sandwiches as ordered, but got two small glasses of wine, and no fries.  Oh well, we figured he was looking out for our health (no fries) and our wallets ( no fries and no large glasses of wine).

After lunch, we headed back into the gardens for some more pictures since the sun was now directly overhead, and was prefect for photos.  We had about an hour before the afternoon fountain show started.  The fountains are only run twice a day, and only on weekends, which was our main intention for heading over here today, to see the fountains in operation.

Right on time, all the the fountains on the entire grounds started at 3:30 PM.  There are many fountains within the gardens, some small, some large.  The afternoon fountain session is 1 1/2 hours in length (only 1 hour at 11:00 in the morning), so you have time to walk from one to another to see them in action.

Although no one single fountain is spectacular, the sheer number of them in the gardens is.  We had wondered if they were always running in the day when Versailles was actually home to the royalty, or,  if they were run just for special occasions.  Sounds like an internet question.

At about 4:45 PM, we headed back to the train station for our 35 minute ride back into Paris.  There was some issues with the trains, so we actually had to get off of one, and on to another, but we were on our way home by about 5:00 PM.

Actually, we were headed to Notre Dame to attend the Saturday Vigil Mass at 6:30 PM.

We got over to the Cathedral, and the crowd there was massive.  There were still many tour groups going in, so we got in the winding line.  There was actually a line specifically for going to Mass, but since we were a little early, we decided just to go in with the the normal tourist crowd.  However, once inside, the Mass line and the tourist line became the same line, so we just decided to get a good seat for Mass, near to the front.

The Mass was nice, but being in French sort of diminished the overall impact.  Once Mass concluded, we walked around the Cathedral, and noticed a food tasting going on at the river level, which is a walkway platform down near the river, accessible from steps at the street level, roughly 25 feet higher.  The food tasting seemed to be like a “Taste of Paris”, where local restaurants bring food and wine for tastings at a small fee.  We walked through the festival but did not participate in the tasting.  We then headed back up the stairs to the street level.  It was nearing 8:00 PM, and we were tired, so we decided that this would be a sandwich and wine night.  We headed to our favorite grocery store for some under 5.00 euro wine and snacks, and then to a sandwich shop for dinner to go.

It had been a long day, and we were still a little tired from the time change.  In addition, it gave me some time to write up this wonderful update.  The sandwiches were good, the snacks better, and the wine was wonderful.