Let Them Eat Cake

April 25

Actually, according to the audio guide on the Big Bus, Marie Antoinette never said, “let them eat cake” but it’s a good story. Anyway, today we took the train to the town of Versailles (about 30 minutes from Paris) to visit the Palace. As we saw at Fontainebleau, most of the rooms were over the top. At least what we could see. As you’ll see from the pictures, the place was crazy crowded. Luckily Lynn’s leg cooperated (at least until the end of the day) because it would have been virtually impossible to get around in a wheelchair. We saw a few people in them and felt bad because they couldn’t see a thing.

Front gates of the palace
Front of palace
Chapel
One of the anterooms
Gardens from the palace
Mirror Hall
King’s bedroom
King’s dining room
War room; there were dozens of pictures of the wars France has been involved with; Peter was in heaven.

After touring the house, we spent a couple of hours walking in the garden and on the rest of the grounds. We took a rowboat ride in the lake and then walked over to Marie Antoinette’s house. We didn’t go in as Peter couldn’t find his ticket and we didn’t want to pay again. By this time, we were getting tired anyway and we had a very long walk back off the property and then to train. Ride on the lake.

On the lake
Lynn taking her turn at the oars; we didn’t get very far
Marie Antoinette’s House

On our way to the train, we stopped at the carriage house that had a handful of carriages from the early 19th century.

One of 40 carriages used in the coronation of Napoleon I.
Used in coronation of Louis XVIII
Used for funeral of Louis XVIII

Once back in Paris, we had dinner and then strolled the streets. Just by luck we ended up walking on what seemed like the 5th Avenue of Paris. We passed a ton of high-end stores and fancy hotels including the Ritz Carlton. We ended up back in the Tuileries Garden then at the Place du Concord. We took the Metro back home from there. It was a tiring day (over 24000 steps on Lynn’s Fitbit) but fun.

In Place Concorde
Obelisk in Place Concorde

Tomorrow is our last day in Paris, and we plan to visit Invalides as we never made it yesterday. We plan to make it an earlier day as we have another load of laundry to do before packing. Talk with you tomorrow.

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