Versailles and Paris

We left Rennes, France and caught a train to Versailles. We arrived quite late in our apartment and were happy to find a small convenience store to get a few groceries and then find our place and go to sleep!

We decided to stay in Versailles for 3 nights because lodging costs inside Paris were prohibitive. (Like more expensive that Rekjavik or anywhere in Scandanavia!)

The cool thing about staying in Versailles for me personally is that I've never been here before. This is my third time visiting Paris, so it is nice to check it out from a different perspective.

Day One: Versaille in the moring, Paris in the afternoon

There are often strikes happening in France and today a large strike started that affects some public buildings/schools/transport/emergency services. So the grounds and palace of Versaille were operating on limited hours and wouldn't open until later today. We took advantage and slept in, did some math, went for a run, did laundry.

We also hit the farmer's market for a second breakfast of fresh strawberries and crepes. Mmmmm crepes.

Then we did a brief tour of the grounds of the palace. Wow! You could spend a LONG time here. The gardens and statues are amazing. 

Apollo on his chariot in this pool

I have to share, if I haven't already, that our kids LOVE mythology. I'd love to personally thank the author Rick Riordan because my children (and many of their peers) know a LOT about Greek and Roman mythology (and Norse, and the list is growing). So when we go to the statue garden or see a scene on a ceiling in a castle - the kids are stoked and excited to see the references or artwork related to their favorite gods and godesses. I also have been reading the "Percy Jackson" books with them and it has hugely benefitted my own enjoyment of art and attractions we go to as well.

We had an entrance ticket to the inside of the palace for 12:30pm and then walked through the state rooms. Rachel said it well when she said "Is this the King's bedroom now? ... no - this is the room of Hermes... Is THIS the king's bedroom now? ... no - still another room..."

We enjoyed the lavish details: the gold, the art, the carvings, the details... But Rachel also said as we were leaving: "I don't want to be disrespectful, and I understand that we want to preserve history and all, but couldn't just HALF of the palace be used to house refugees or people who need housing?" ... 

After a little rest and regroup at our apartment, we caught the train into Paris. Did you know it's a 60 euro fine on the train if you put your shoes up on the opposite seat? We learned that. And as much as a 60 euro ticket and an unfriendly security person really sucked and ate hugely into our Paris budget, it was an interesting lesson. We totally expected the guard to just kindly let us know not to put our feet up on the chair, like getting a warning on your first time becuase we didn't know that rule. The kids (and us adults) were shown in no uncertain terms that different countries do different things with rules. This was a rule, and we needed to pay our fine and respectfully keep our mouths shut. Perhaps something we must learn to keep in mind going forward in different parts of the world.

But anyway, we made it into Paris in the late afternoon.

We decided that day 1 in Paris (which was really a late afternoon/evening only) would be dedicated to the activity that the kids knew about, had heard about, and were STOKED about: The Eiffel Tower. But I'm not going to say much about the Tower or post any photos because Rachel is going to write a post soon about that part from her perspective. 

I'll just say that my favorite thing about it was seeing the excitement oozing from the kids. Jason and I had both been here before, but the kids were STOKED. This is the first activity that we have done on this trip so far that the kids had heard about before we left home, and the only one so far that many of their friends will understand.

We grabbed some crepes and hot dogs at a food stall nearby before boarding the 'BatoBus'. We wanted to see the tower during the day and also see it lit up at night. But instead of doing a fancy dinner cruise on the Seine, we decided to ride the transport boat around its whole loop. This takes 2 hours and it is one way to see the highlights of the city lit up at night.

It was late when we were done, and we were hungry/thirsty/sleepy. We caught the train (limited service due to the strike) back to Versaille and had a snack and went to sleep.

Day Two: La Louvre and The Arc de Triomphe

We booked tickets for a 9:30am entry to La Louvre, which meant a relatively early start for breakfast and a train into the city, then a bus to La Louvre. Perhaps many of you reading will have been before, or you can read about all the works inside. So I'll just share a few of our favorite things.

Once again, the kids were particularly excited about the Mona Lisa, because it was something they had read about / heard about. After that we focused on exhibits from Egypt and Rome, and the kids ended up being very interested in various things they saw.

Mom's favorite

Daddy's favorite

The calendar on the ceiling of the Apollo room: M's favorite

R loved almost all of the Egyptian displays

Ava loved all things cat based in the Egypt part

R knows all about each Egyptian god

Sarcophaguses are cool.

Papyrus paper

Mummification - M and R both loved this one

Ava loved the mummified cats

That's a lot of bull

The Venus de Milo

Aphrodite

A version of the Athena Parthenos

It was an amazing place and interesting, but also overwhelming. We got quite fatigued by lunch and left to go find some food. We were thrilled to find a salad because we've been short on vegetables and heavy on pastries lately!

We walked from La Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe, which is about a 45 min walk through la place de la Concorde. 

During our walk, we had three great stops: 

1) A crepe stop and met another Spanish family with very young kids.

2) We had a lovely park bench stop where we stopped time and snuggled up and enjoyed the fall colours and people around us

3) The kids had a quick game of some kind of tag and ran around and were just fun playful kids in the middle of the city.

By the time we got to the Arc, we were all tired but Ava in particular refused to walk any further, so we found a metro and made our way back to our apartment in Versaille.

Day Three: Catacombs. This is the morning activity we chose before moving on from Paris. History folks may want to read about the reason behind the catacombs and the ossuary. When cemetaries in Paris were overflowing in the 1700s, bones were moved underground, into the spaces that used to be quarries for obtaining limestone to build buildings (such as the Notre Dame). Some 6 million bodies were placed with specificity and care, but all mixed up, to create walls and passageways and art. Most of the bodies were likely to have died from the Plague.

It is amazing to see the bones go on and on and on and on... 

After this activity, which only took us about 30 min to walk through underground, we hit up the pattisserie and then spent some time with Parisian transit before we left town on the train. Au Revoir, Paris. Prochain arret: Montpellier.

We found some take away 'mac and cheese' to take for dinner on the train.

Arriving in Montpellier