Paris 4 (Versailles)
Trip Start
Nov 14, 2008
1
16
102
Trip End
Feb 26, 2009
Paris,
France
Saturday, November 29, 2008
While Deutsch and Tow slept off their late night, Mich and I visited, albeit at different times, King Louis IV's palace at Versailles. The palace itself was as nice as Windsor Castle, but the gardens were something I've never seen before.
The rooms were quite impressive but I became bored seeing chamber after antechamber after salon after drawing room for each member of the royal family. There were two things within the palace building that stood out for me - the Hall of Mirrors, where the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919 to end World War I, and artwork by Jeff Koons. Several of the rooms displayed his art, including an enormous and colourful sculpture looking like one of those balloon dogs that clowns make, and a red heart with ribbons that appeared gift-wrapped. The art had absolutely nothing to do with the rooms they were featured in, but the descriptions still managed to contrive some abstract connection.
I met Mich at Marie Antoinette's House after walking for half an hour, through the palace grounds, to get there. The grounds were magnificent - a bit like the Royal Botanic Gardens back home, with fountains, ponds and ornamental hedges. It's no wonder the French Revolution occurred amidst such opulence. Mich loves her castles and palaces, and spent about 2 hours longer than I did in the palace and grounds. I had to leave for the police station, to report my stolen camera.
Montmartre tour
Lauren and Nathan highly recommended checking out the Montmartre district, France's artistic and cultural area at the top of a hill. As usual, I did so on a Sandemans walking tour. The tour started at night in front of Moulin Rouge, where above the famous windmill was scaffolding work typical in the European winter, just to ruin photos. Another movie whose sights we visited was Amelie, including the coffee shop she frequented, where profits went up 800% in the year after the film was released!
We were given interesting stories about Van Gogh and Picasso's experiences as poor artists in the area, the red light district, Paris's sole vineyard where bottles sell for 2000 Euro, and the city's last surviving windmill. A highlight was entering the Sacre Couer, the church at the top of Montmartre, from where we had a great view of Paris. Tomorrow's our last full day in Paris, and we have a lot planned for it.
