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11 October 2016

Paris 2016 – Day 5 / Versailles

Steps today: 25 157

Today we went to Versailles.

Our hotel in Place D’Italie is not that long a walk to the Gare D’Austerlitz from where we needed to take the train, so we decide to walk it this morning and find a place for breakfast along the way. We ended up in a café that was right across the street from the hospital where Princess Diana was brought when she had her fatal accident. I can’t believe that this was almost 20 years ago!

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The weather when we got to Versailles was lousy. Thick Fog. There was no sunny blue sky WOW moment upon seeing the Palace for the first time and I was a little disappointed for my mom who had never seen it before. (I visited in 2004). Still, despite the foggy presentation, it was great.

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And the closer you got, the less it mattered.

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Touring the Palace was for me just OK. I know that sounds bad and I don’t mean it that way – it’s just that I have seen it before along with a billion other similar palaces so it all just feels the same after a while. I was in it for the gardens!

Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed it - I wasn’t bored or anything like that… I mean, it IS an impressive place!! I just feel like I have reached my lifetime quota for these kinds of over-opulent interiors.

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Once done touring the Palace, we stopped for lunch before getting to what I really came for: The Gardens.

I’m becoming very repetitive with my foie gras & cheese plates I know… but it’s so goooooood!

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We have a Museum Pass which normally would have given us free entry into all the sights, but I didn’t do my homework because I did not read the fine print explaining that on Tuesdays there is something called “The Musical Gardens” and therefore we had to pay an 8€ surplus. I was a little annoyed at myself at first, until I saw/experienced the Musical Gardens and then I thanked God we showed up on a Tuesday!!!! It was phenomenal and WELL WELL WELL worth the measly 8€ (would have been 25€ had we not had a pass)

Thankfully, the fog had completely lifted by then and we had blue skies for the rest of the day.

The highlight was the dancing fountains. They were so mesmerizing we could have watched for hours. My mom took a nice video and tagged me in Facebook. If we’re FB friends go have a look.

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The “Regular” Gardens weren’t so shabby.. Winking smile

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I took a chance with this photo of he water fall, shooting against the sun, it didn’t turn out too badly!

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We visited the Grand and Petit Trianon, and again it was the gardens and overall look that interested me more than the interiors.

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What I wanted to visit most of all was the Queen’s hamlet, a mock village of thatched cottages where Marie Antoinette would go to get away from it all and pretend she was a peasant.

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Some other interesting sights included a pumpkin patch (I had never seen one before)

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And look at these fish! Are they begging for food? It was almost creepy!

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We stayed at Versailles until closing, meaning we got back to Paris around quarter to 8. Too tired to do anything new or fancy for supper, we broke the no resto repeat rule and went to the pizza place around the corner from the hotel. The pizza is to die for – but the service is terrible!

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Today marks the half-way point in our vacation, time is FLYING by!

Looking forward to another full day tomorrow.

Goodnight!

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