I don't think Marie Antoinette ever had to put up with fleas!

Sunday, Sept 25 - Versailles

We wanted to go to Versailles.  It had to happen on Sunday because most attractions in France are closed on Monday and we were heading out of town on Tuesday morning.  So Sunday it was.  It opens at 9am.  Alisma had figured out how to get there.  First the Metro, then a train to the city of Versailles.  We were aiming to get there by 8:30 to avoid the lineups.  Which meant leaving our apartment by 6:50.  So we were up early and out the door before it was light.

As always, we underestimated how big the Metro/train stations are so we almost missed our train but we got on, just, and we on our way. We got into Versailles a little after 8am. The Metro station was a gong show as there was a marathon in Paris ending in Versailles that day so it seemed like everyone in Versailles was taking the train into Paris, all wearing green plastic bags (it was forecast for rain).

We made it past the green hoard and found a hotel to print our tickets (which as it turned out, they only sent us one so we had to get the second one printed at the gate anyway), bought some coffee and a muffin at Starbucks (sorry France, it was right there at the gate) and headed up the road.

I won't bore you with the history of Versailles, mainly because I don't know it.  But the highlight was that it was a ridiculously decadent, gold plated palace of the king and queen of France.  Which may have been part of the reason the lowly French folk got so annoyed and beheady.  If you are interested and have more time than me, here is some history:  http://www.livescience.com/38903-palace-of-versailles-facts-history.html

Even though we arrived early, we still had to wait in line which gave us lots of time to look at the gold gates gleaming with the rising sun.  Here are some photos from the lineup.

Irony Alert:  'For all the glory of France'
I guess all except the rabble

Gleaming!

Vive la Statues!

Once past the gates

Apparently we weren't the only ones to come today.
This is the great hall where everyone starts.
I got out of there asap

 Mostly just behold the crazy decadence

The occasional bottleneck

Alisma listening to the audio tour in the hall of war

Then out to the gardens.  There are acres and kilometers of gardens.  In sections.  With pools and grottos and hedges and fountains and statues and flowers for ever.

Alisma waiting for me at our post-palace meeting place

Dancing fountains.  These two trees in the foreground are a Yew
and Box tree from the origianl forest before the gardens.
This was where it started raining.

Raining

Then we visited the Grand Trianon and Petite Trianon.  What does that mean?  I have no idea.  They seem to be the residences of previous slightly less decadent kings and queens before Versailles was built.  Apparently, the Trianons did not impress me because I only took on photo.

The path to the Trianons

I don't even know if this is the Grand or the Petite

There are parakets all around the grounds.
I assume escaped pets who are now breeding

 After the Trianons, we visited the Queen's Hamlet.  I loved this little 'village'.  Apparently Marie Antoinette designed it because farming is important or something.  The little cottages were very poorly built with no foundations and thatch roofs so they are barely surviving.  We could not go into them (except one that had a room open as a public bathroom).  Each little cottage had a little garden, still being tended.

There was also a real working farm out there.  I'm not sure if it was from Marie Antoinette's days but it had a vineyard and chickens.  Plus some goats and a vegetable garden

The farm

Chickens and vineyards, Chickens in Vineyards

I don;t know why this guy gets a spot but I like him,
a pigeon with attitude

 And then we took the tram back to the palace because we were tired and had walked a million miles.

The tram

Versailles Selfie

Then back to the city.  But let me back up a day.  We arrived at our AirBNB and spent the first night with Alisma in the bedroom and me on the cot in the kitchen.  When Alisma woke up that first morning she had some bites on her arm and a leg.  She was worried it was bedbugs or fleas in the bed.  But there were only a few, a very itchy few, so she decided to wait and see.  I might have been something else?  But the next morning, as we were traveling on the train, there were more appearing, so many more, including on her face.  She looks like a pox has been cursed upon her. And they were red and welty.  And, I am told emphatically, ITCHY.  Experiment over, it was the bed.  We decided to change locations as soon as we returned from Versailles.

She counted, there were 103 bites by day two

Alisma found a cheap hotel near the Republik Metro station, on the other side of the river.  It was called the Picard Hotel (so of course, I assumed Jean-Luc would greet us but no).   We threw in a load of laundry to wash anything that had touched the bed and Alisma called Nadia to say we were leaving and we wanted a refund for our last two nights.  I wanted to try for the first two nights too but that didn't fly.

She showed up really quickly.  We barely had the laundry out of the wash.  And again, I had to rush-pack.  Nadia said Alisma must have brought the fleas with her but she gave us our money.  And off we went with our wet clothes to Hotel Picard for the next two nights.  It was fine and unnoteworthy. In blog time, we are still there, but in real time, we are in the Alps in Haute-Savoie in Eastern France. You'll have to wait for that, if I ever catch up.