Paris Trip, Day 1

I know I've posted pictures of Paris on a few other occasions, so I'm going to try and post only the "new" sights I got to experience, along with a few others. Terri and I headed out in our car on Day 1 around 7:00 am. Terri didn't have her international drivers license (which I bothered her about the whole time) so the driving was all left up to me. Yes, I drove in Paris and we survived. If you have been to Paris, you are probably impressed. Those of you who haven't, just trust me when I say the driving is CRAZY. They don't believe in lanes, they just go... it's not my style, but I did it! We even got gas along the way, all by ourselves.

Anyway, we arrived in Paris, checked in our hotel and were off to Versailles by about 1:30.
As you know, the Palace of Versailles was where Marie Antoinette and Louis XIV dwelled. It took us about a 30 - 45 minutes train ride (including stops) to get to Versailles. We only ran into one obstacle on this leg of the journey. We failed to get our RER (train) ticket, because it let us use our Paris Subway ticket to get onto the train. However, when we got off our ticket wouldn't register so we held everyone behind us up, while purchasing the correct ticket and heading on our way. There was a man standing there with tickets, so obviously this is a usual occurrence or they wouldn't devote one employee solely to this task.

I went ahead and did a slide show of the Palace. I really don't feel like the pictures capture the true elegance of the Palace. This place was ENORMOUS and GORGEOUS. It consists of the actual Palace, then grounds in the back which lead to the Kings Estate and Queens Estate where they retreated to be away from the people of the palace. It was about a 30 minute walk from the Palace to the Estates, and of course you had to purchase separate tickets for each or one huge pass for the entire estate. The appearance of the front of the Palace was a little disappointing as they were doing construction and had fake pictures for the missing parts along with all the construction equipment. But, once we got inside it was nothing but pure elegance. I can't imagine living my every day life there. Wow.

One last thing that was a little distracting inside was the Jeff Koonz art exhibit. His "art" which I showed a few pictures of was over the entire palace. It really distracted from the rooms and our pictures, but we made the best of it. I just don't get "Art" sometimes.

Here's the slideshow. Let me know if you have any questions! Also, be checking Terri's blog (on the sidebar) as I'm sure she'll post much more of the history than I care to.