Versailles

FRIDAY, JULY 27, 2012
We got moving early enough to go to Versailles this time.

We should have been able to walk to the train station and take a train straight there, but that particular train line was closed through the central part of Paris, so it was a bit more difficult.  We ended up having to take 2 subways in order to catch that train a little farther down the line where it reopened.
This is probably the day I was most nervous about because I knew that they do not allow strollers in the palaces of Versailles.  Clara will sit in a baby carrier for little bits at a time sometimes, but generally she does not tolerate them very well, so I knew that I would most likely spend the bulk of the day carrying her.  This is why most of these pictures are of me.  Zack had camera duty and I had baby duty.

We began our tour in the grand palace, which was just insane.  It was so beautiful.  It seemed like every surface was ornately decorated.  It was just a huge sensory overload. Despite following some tips online for going when it would be less crowded, it was packed.  We waited in line for a while to get in, and then we were basically just carried through the palace in a big sea of people.  We didn't get a ton of pictures, because it was crowded, because it was hard to know what to photograph when every surface is covered in ornamentation,  and because we were busy just taking it in.  And the photos we did get do not do it justice at all.  But here some are anyway. 

Our first glimpses of the palace

Waiting in line to get in.  I had to carry the baby for this part too because the cobblestones were too rough to roll her in the stroller.

Tolerating her baby carrier for the moment

a chapel

bedroom.  Look at the funny feather duster poofy things on the tops of the bed

Another bedroom

Not surprisingly, a major highlight of the tour was the hall of mirrors.  It seemed a little less crowded in there, perhaps because it's so large, and we were able to get some photos.

I guess I am just ignorant, but I always thought Versailles was a palace and some big gardens.  It is that, but there are 2 other palaces on the grounds, the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon.  They are a little ways away from the main palace, and they provided an escape from court life in the main palace.  We took the lazy people's route and rode a little train over to the Trianon palaces.

Waiting for the train

riding the train

This time, the advice we got online about when to go to the smaller palaces really paid off.  They were not at all crowded.  These palaces were not so gaudy as the main one, of course, but were still plenty pretty.

Inside the Grand Trianon

There was a grand hall type place in the Grand Trianon

Outside the Grand Trianon

Louis XIV gave the Petit Trianon and surrounding area to Marie Antionette to be her own private palace.  She had a hamlet built in that area.  It had a functioning farm and dairy.  This is not what I expected to see at Versailles.  It felt almost Disneyland-esque.  It was pretty though.

Taking a little break in the hamlet

On our way back to the Petit Trianon to catch the train, we happened upon these pretty gardens.

It sprinkled a little on us while we waited in line to catch the train back to the main palace, but luckily, that was all the rain we got for the day.
By the time we got back to the main palace, I had been holding the baby for hours and hours, and I was so happy to have my stroller back to explore the gardens.
As expected, the gardens were huge and beautiful and extremely well manicured.  We had some fun exploring them.

the back of the main palace

the Orangery

Zack really liked this sculpture, with the contrasting colors and motifs

There are some large lake things down a ways into the gardens.  Louis XIV kept large boats on them.  This view was just unreal.  It looked like something out of a painting.  They are so large and symmetrical.  It is hard to describe, but it was just kind of like my perspective was all thrown off when I looked at them.  That is something that photos can't capture.

Looking back up toward the palace from the lakes

While we were down by the lakes, we spotted this deer.  It was just terrified.  It clearly did not know where to go, and there were people all over the place.  We moved back a little to let it run by.  We could see that it was injured.  It had broken through a fence and scraped itself on the jagged edges.  Poor thing.  I hope it found a safe place to go.

Mirror fountain

Zack took this one.

Although it was tiring to carry the baby for the entire first section of the day, it was not too bad, and I think we had a really great day.  We polished things off with a very unremarkable dinner followed by the train ride home.

And now, back to France (I wish)

THURSDAY, JULY 26, 2012

We were supposed to go to Versailles on this day, but we got moving way too slow in the morning, so we rearranged some of our plans.
We got off the subway and walked across the Pont Alexandre III.  On the way we saw the Grand and Petit Palais.

Grand Palais, looking across Pont Alexandre III with Dome Church in the background

Front of the Grand Palais

Grand Palais

Petit Palais

Pont Alexandre III

Pont Alexandre III

Our first stop was Invalides, and the Musee de l'Armee.  We weren't really interested in the museum, but had to pay the admission to be able to go into the Dome Chutch.

Musee de l'Armee and Dome Church

There was a pretty chapel (The Chapel of Saint Louis des Invalides) in the Musee de l'Armee (it is actually pictured just below and slightly to the left of the dome in the picture above) that backed right up onto Dome Church.  You can see the inside of the Dome Church through that glass window at the end of the chapel.

The Dome Church is the burial place of Napoleon Bonaparte.  His ashes lie encased in 6 caskets under the dome.

Looking down onto Napoleon's burial place.  It was really big.  See the comparative size of the people in the background

Looking up at the dome.  Zack got really good at self-portraits this trip

Napoleon's casket looking up toward the altarpiece.  That's the glass window I mentioned in the other chapel.

Very beautiful

There were some pretty gardens outside the church that we enjoyed walking around.

Then we hopped across the street to the Rodin Museum.  We weren't sure we should even make the time for this in our Paris trip since Philadelphia has the best collection of Rodin's work outside of France, but we were glad we did.  Rodin lived in and worked out of this house for a long time.  He personally selected it as the site where his works would be displayed after his death.

Many of Rodin's sculptures are displayed out in the gardens.

The Thinker

The Gates of Hell

View of the dome church from the Rodin gardens

This is one of the museums where they won't let you bring a stroller inside. Baby didn't mind.  She just snoozed through the whole thing.

Lunch!
I'm not sure why Jean Paul Gaultier is designing Coke cans, but there you go.

Mmmm

Our next destination was the Musee d'Orsay.  On our walk there, we saw the National Assembly, the French legislature.

We just happened upon this church, St. Clotilde, which turned out to be quite pretty.

The Musee d'Orsay is housed in a former railway station.  It picks up where the Louvre leaves off chronologically, sometime around 1850 I think.  The best part about the museum was the collection of impressionist works.  There were Monets, Manets (hee hee), Van Goghs, Renoirs, Cezannes... it was really quite the collection.  There was also a collection of decorative arts and a number of sculptures.  The Orsay does not allow photos of its collections at this time, so we just got a few photos there.

breast feeding at the Orsay

It's hard to tell, but you could see out this clock and it had a very nice view of the city

There was an outdoor terrace.  You can see the Sacre Coeur on the top of the hill on the left and the Louvre on the right.

A very cool building

We did enjoy this museum very much, but I still liked the Louvre best.  I think lots of people really enjoy the smaller, more manageable collections of some of the other museums, and I can see why, but the Louvre was just amazing.
We polished off our day with a few pastries...

all of which were delicious.  My favorite here was either the eclair (which was filled with chocolate...mmmm), or that one that looks like 2 cream puffs stacked on top of each other.  I can't think of what it's called right now, but I remember Sam telling us that it means "nun" in French.