Paris, Day 3
Today was our day in Versailles! I have been looking forward to this trip, and it was quite a trip since it took over an hour and a half to get there from our hotel. Just walking to the huge complex was amazing. You couldn’t tell where the actual Versailles building stopped and all the surrounding building began. It’s like the rest of the town just built right around the main palace. Once we got into the complex we did not know where to go!
We finally found the main entrance (due to construction this was a bit tricky). When we went into the main building we were given an audio guide, which was really helpful. Willow really liked the horse statues! There was also a small musical group setting up in one of the large fancy rooms. The kids really liked the small puppet theatre, which is a replica of an actual theatre. The backdrops go up and down and there were small rope and pully systems in the backstage area.
There was a temporary exhibit that walked through the importance of animals in the palace of Versailles. This was actually Zoey’s favorite part of the whole day! She listened to every audio stop, and we were often waiting for her to finish up as we moved to the next room. Willow and Ronin had a great time looking at all the pictures of horses and dogs, and thought it was cool they had the names of the dogs on the paintings. I didn’t know how many exotic animals were held at Versailles, and the skeleton and taxidermized elephants were interesting. We al also liked the sleighs that were made to look like animals.
The actual rooms of Versailles were beautiful. Most of them did not have much furniture in them but were completely open, which highlighted the painted ceilings and walls and the ornamentation and artwork.
And finally we get to the Hall of Mirrors. There are over 350 mirrors in this long hallway, which has mirrors down one side and large windows facing the Palace Gardens. We couldn’t get enough of this room, and I took a million pictures. I kept trying to get pictures without a lot of people in them, but have to remember how lucky we are to have the room as empty as it is instead of completely crowded with people.
There was still more to see after the Hall of Mirrors, including the Prince’s Stairwell and this really long checkered hallway that looks like it goes on forever.
After walking through the Palace we went outside to the gardens. The kids really liked the different fountains and getting to run around. Since it was relatively empty out in the gardens we let the kids run as long as there weren’t a bunch of people around. It is astonishing how they can be sooooooooo tired but then get outside and run like they are in an Olympic game of tag.
We made our way about a mile across the grounds to get to the Grand and Petit Trianon buildings. I really wanted to see Grand Trianon (the larger building with pink marble) because it is where the Treaty of Trianon was signed at the end of WWI that took most of Hungary’s land away. This Grand Trianon building was built as a retreat for the king (and his mistress) to get away from the formalities of the royal court, but obviously not too far away since it isn’t that far from Versailles. The Petit Trianon building was specifically built for Louis XV’s mistress, Madame de Pompadour and was then use as a getaway for Marie Antoinette. This led Zoey to ask my mom what a mistress is, and led to some very interesting and awkward conversations.
We walked from the Petit Trianon down the paths to the Hameau de la Reine, or the Queen’s Hamlet. It took us by a lovely little stream, and of course the kids got to run down the path.
The Temple d’Amour is located directly behind (although a little far away from) Petit Trianon and is a lovely little cupola with a statue that sits in the gardens of Trianon. There was a couple sitting on the steps who weren’t moving, so I had the kids just stand right in front of them to take a picture!
The Hameau de la Reine is a cluster of rustic buildings built for Marie Antoinette. The main building was supposedly furnished very grandly on the inside, although we couldn’t go into any of the buildings. It was cute though, and looked like a rustic little village. You could see how the buildings were actually roofed with straw, and how thick the straw roofing was. The day really cleared up and we had beautiful blue skies as we explored the hamlet.
We walked back toward the Palace. It was a long day with lots of walking, but the kids were still running around like crazy. It was a great day for them, and then we took the train/metro an hour and a half back to our hotel. We let each of the kids pick out a special thing to buy here in France (Zoey’s was the beret, Ronin’s was a metal Eiffel Tower), and Willow picked out this pink coin purse to keep her treasures in.
We really like the Meininger Hotels, as we have stayed in four of them by now. Each one is slightly different; the last one had three bunk beds, and this one had two bunk beds and two twin beds pushed together. There was a wall between the bunk beds and the twin beds with a little cutout hole at the top. You could lean over on the top of one of the bunks to peep through the hole, and the kids liked spying on us over on the other side of the room.
