Sunday, June 12, 2011

Versailles by Golf Cart

This morning we had breakfast walking down our street. Because Liz is awesome she booked us a hotel not only with a view but with an awesome street market too. We all got different pastries, ordering is always fun when you don't speak the language. You get to stand there and point and mumble under your breath the word in English only to have the lady giggle at you because she speaks perfect English but it's more fun to watch you stumble your way through it.
After eating our awesome breakfast we got on the train to go to Versailles. It was pretty weird on the train because we were basically the only people on it and that seemed a little off for the train going to Versailles so we got off that train and on a different one where there were tons of tourists so we knew we were in the right place.

Once at Versailles we had to wait in a big long line to get our tickets because we didn't buy them a head of time but it actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I found out that as a "student in Europe" or because I was studying in London, I got to go in free, which saved me a lot of money. I still had to buy a ticket to get into the garden but it was totally worth it.
So we decided to go to the gardens first because the line for the Chateau was really super long. Well the gardens at Versailles are, in my opinion, the reason to go there at all.

But they are also huge and its pretty unrealistic to think you can walk around them in an afternoon and see everything, so we didn't, we drove all over them in an afternoon and saw everything. :) Versailles was brilliant when they decided to rent out golf carts to people and so even though they were not the cheapest option, Joe was gracious enough to rent one for us, and it was the best money we spent on the trip.

So we got in our Golf cart and set off around the gardens, listening to wonderful (for the fist few minutes) classical music. It was really cool because the golf carts music would stop and tell us cool things about whatever significant thing we were near.

The gardens we absolutely amazing. One of my favorite fountains was this one. I don't remember exactly who it is supposed to be but I know he's being punished. It was just really awesome.
I also really liked the sculpted bushes, and the statues.


The gardens have this huge man made lake in the middle of them, people can even rent boats to take on it, we didn't we got ice cream and fresh squeezed orange juice instead.

These are some of the stuff we saw in the garden

On our way back up to the Chateau the fountain show started to go off.

There was a really annoying security guard that wasn't going to let us go back up to the Chateau because we had to go up past the fountain show and I couldn't find my ticket, and to make matters worse I hit my head on the roof of the golf cart when I was looking for my ticket. When I finally found it he let us through and we went and got in line for the Chateau.

Unfortunately the line was no shorter near the end of the day than it was in the morning. That was our plan that by the end of the day everyone would've started in the Chateau and made there way to the gardens but I guess more people had the same idea we did. The line was pretty long and we were actually getting pretty worried that we wouldn't get in before it closed but thankfully we did. There was this really annoying lady who tried to cut in line in front of us but we didn't let her. Some people behind us weren't paying attention and the lady cut the line. I really dislike people like that.
Sadly once inside it was my least favorite Castle/mansion/Chateau of my whole trip. not because it wasn't amazingly beautiful but because I have never felt more like cattle in my life.

I guess something happened in one of the rooms before we go inside because it created a huge road block and bottle neck from one really big room into a really tiny one. It was seriously like being in a sardine can and it didn't help that we had a certain group of tourists behind us with no sense of personal space. One amusing thing about it was that Joe and about three other tall guys were having a conversation over every one's heads.
The room I liked the best in the Chateau was the hall of Mirrors. It was just awesome. I would totally have a grand ball in there some day! :) I wish!

After we went through the Chateau it was time to leave so we walked back to the train station.

Once there we found our that our train tickets didn't work to get back to the city apparently a lot of people were having the same problem because there were super long lines for the ticket machines. I realize this is just a way they make money off of it but it is really annoying and you would think the train station would want to avoid "almost-riotous" situations.
When we got back into the city we went and had dinner at a really nice place where we could see the Eiffel Tower from our table. Then after dinner we decided to walk down to the Eiffel Tower. It was raining a little but it didn't matter except one of the places we walked was really slippery and Liz almost ate it.
Well we got crepes and ate them under the Eiffel Tower. Nothing gets better than that!

It was seriously awesome. Actually accomplishing things on my bucket list is pretty awesome. After that and a few, or a lot, of pictures we went home for the night.

Oh darn I had to go to bed seeing the Eiffel Tower out of my window again.

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