It's further out of town than most of the other sites, but we had our trusty metro passes. Paris is known for pickpockets, so I also had a flat little money belt to keep my possessions safe. It's like a fanny pack, only about twenty times thinner, so it can lay flat under your shirt. All your credit cards and museum passes and metro tickets can fit in there, safe from prying fingers. A lot of peace of mind came along with that belt, even if it was hot.
We got of at the metro station to find ourselves in a barren little corner of the city. We didn't see anything that looked like a palace, so we hunted up our map and followed it to a major street. Turning left, we followed the sidewalk, still seeing absolutely nothing promising. There were some big buildings. This one said "Libertie, Fraternitie, Egalitie" on it. With the red white and blue bunting, I felt like I'd stepped into the Scarlet Pimpernel!
Then I looked ahead and literally saw a flash of bright gold through the trees.
"I think that's it," I said.
I was right. As we got closer, the trees cleared away, and we saw the most gold-encrusted building I've ever seen in my life. The Denver Capitol building has nothing on Versailles.
You can't really tell in this picture, but it kind of gives you a sense of the scale. The statue on horseback is King Louis XIV, the Sun King.
This is us standing in line to get in. You can see the big gold fence and gate.
Inside was very big and very gold, with lots and lots of people.
Lots of statues too. The whole thing was huge and very grand, very not-cozy.
Most of the rooms had elaborately painted ceilings. Can you tell where the molding blends into the paint? They tried to make it look like every room opened up into the sky, with gods and goddesses and cherubs and musical instruments - you name it, they had it.
This is another ceiling. Remember Louis XIV, nicknamed the "Sun King?" Well, they played off of that by painting Apollo, the Greek sun god, soaring across above one of the king's antechambers.
This is the Hall of Mirrors. In a day and age when mirrors were rare and expensive, the kings of France built a hall with windows along one side and matching mirrors on the other. Tons of lights and chandeliers and statues are scattered along its length, with a lot of gold, of course.
See all these tourists? I heard more different languages than I could possibly recognize.
This was Marie Antoinette's bedroom. See the door set into the wall? When the French stormed the palace, she escaped through that door into her husband's room, seeking refuge. Sadly, they were both captured shortly thereafter.
This is a famous painting of Marie Antoinette and her children. I was thrilled to actually see it in real life, and not just on Wikipedia! The crib in the painting is empty - the baby died before the painting was finished, and the artist painted it out.
This is the painting of Napoleon crowning Josephine as his empress. The thing is huge, obviously. I never thought it would be so big!
There were so many paintings and artwork and things - walls and halls full! This hall had paintings of French battle heroes, including Joan of Arc, Napoleon, Clovis etc. I felt very weak on my French history.
So there I was, walking down the hallway of paintings I just showed a picture of, and I thought to myself, "Wow, that sure looks like George Washington. Huh." Well, go figure. There among the paintings of famous French battles and heroes was a picture of the Battle of Yorktown.
The funny thing was, it portrayed the Battle of Yorktown as basically a French victory. I got a kick out of it!
Out in the courtyard again, I thought I'd get some more good shots.
See all that gold? Wow.
I just can't get over the sheer opulence of this place. No wonder the French populace decided to have a revolution!
Back in another part of the palace - this place claimed to be a bedroom. Can you figure out what that piece of furniture is? It's too small and short to be a bed, but it's too tall and wide to be a chair...
Leaving the palace, we went into the gardens. They stretch literally for miles. There's a little train that can take you around, or you can rent a ride on a golf cart thing. We opted to walk.
See all these nice white paths? Well, when I started the day, I had black shoes. By the end, they were a dirty creamy beige from all the dust we kicked up.
Roses.
The grounds are so big that they have refreshment stands to feed you. I have to say, this is the fanciest log cabin type structure I've ever seen. Very non western.
I got strawberry. The day was horribly hot! Well, it was in the eighties, but to us, fresh from the low seventies of England, it was sweltering. I think I'm going to get either tanned or sunburned, one or the other.
This is the little house that Marie Antoinette had built on the grounds so she could go and play at being a regular person.
Needless to say, it's far from regular. Yes, it has significantly less gold than the palace, but that doesn't make it a peasant's cottage. Miriam and I were enchanted by the old musical instruments here.
Oh, such a tiny peasant house. Look, it only has one grand staircase! (Can you feel the sarcasm coming through?)
This is the kitchen. I love the roof. Can I have one like this in my home someday?
Out in the garden, there's a temple of Eros, I think it was. Some naked statue with wings and a bow, so it makes sense. I loved the weeping willow. It was massive, one of the biggest I've seen. The trail to the temple-thing led right under the branches of the tree.
Off in the distance you can see some buildings. That is the little village that Marie had built so she could go among the people and play with them. We didn't get to walk all the way down to it.
Everywhere we went, there were precisely trimmed hedges or trees. I must admit, England had prettier gardens, but France has more impressive trimming!
As we were walking back to the palace though, all the fountains had been turned on. I discovered later that every fountain is run through water pressure from the Seine River. No electricity utilized!
Also beneath the Arc is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Apparently that flame never goes out.
This is probably my most favorite fountain of all time. Sea horses and water monsters surround the central figure, which is a dragon that breathes a plume of water! I love it!
On our way back, we got to see the gardeners at work, trimming the topiary. They have a board with the desired outline. Then they hold it up to the bush and snip off any stray branches. It makes sense that they would use a pattern, but I never thought about it before - I just assumed they eyeballed it.
This is the back of Versailles.
This is the grand view. Everything you can see, for as far as you can see, belongs to the grounds. It's staggering.
After Versailles, we went looking for food, and found the Lindt chocolate store instead. Everyone who walked in received a complimentary chocolate.
All that - all of it - is chocolate. I could hardly drag Miriam away!
Then we went to a sort of food mall. That's the best way I know how to describe it.
Floors and floors of restaraunts, specialty stores, glass cases of meat and fruit and vegetables and bread and cookies...
This is not a good place to go when hungry.
These little Oreo cookie-shaped things are actually macarons. They're the equivalent of two or three dollars a cookie, and they come in every shade of the rainbow. There were cases and cases of them.
These desserts - I actually don't know what they are. But they looked so picture perfect that I had to show you.
I got a sandwich - pickles and ham. It was really good! I paid for it with a five euro bill I got out of a machine, and then pored over the change as soon as I found a seat.
It's fascinating - I knew that France used euros, but I had no idea how they broke down into smaller increments.
Well, I found out.
The smallest paper money that I ever saw is a five euro bill. Then they have two-euro coins (brass center, silver outer rim) and one-euro coins (silver center, brass outer rim). Like America, they use cents. I saw fifty cent pieces, ten, and one cent pieces, but instead of having a twenty-five cent piece like America, they have a twenty cent piece like Britain. I don't know if they have five-cent pieces - I never saw any, but I won't rule out the possibility.
The thing that surprised me most was the size of the one cent coins. All the others are sized fairly similarly to our own - little differences here and there, but nothing too unusual. These are tiny, though!
For comparison, (left to right) here is a British penny, an American cent, and a Euro cent. It's significantly smaller than either of the others, although slightly thicker. It's very interesting. I keep feeling like they're play money.
Back in the street again. I'm standing by a metro entrance. It's interesting - the tube underground system in England is all totally streamlined. The signs are all the same, the entrances, ticket-takers, trains - all the same. Here, there is no standardized look, which can make it very hard to find a metro entrance. The sign will be unique, often unlit or simply not visible in any way. I'm so glad for our maps!
Metros are different here than in London, and they don't compare favorably. They are dark, dirty, and stink. I have my suspicions about the nature of the liquid that runs in the gutters on the metro platforms. That's all I'll say about that!
Walking toward the Arc de Triomph, we passed this obelisk, and I started having a little happy dance. The other girls looked at Miriam and I with bewilderment until I explained.
Years ago, New York City got an Egyptian obelisk. Obelisks often come in pairs, so London, after lots of adventures, managed to get the matching one. Paris, not to be left out, promptly went to Cairo and picked one up for themselves. (This was when the western world used Egypt as their antique shop.) The match to the Paris obelisk is actually still in Cairo.
Miriam and I have now seen all three famous Egyptian obelisks to be moved from Cairo. We've been to New York, London, and now Paris. It's like being on a global scavenger hunt, and we just won the game!
Now Miriam says we need to go to Cairo to see the fourth one. I'm not so sure.
Apparently there's one in the Vatican too, but that's not going to happen anytime soon.
This is a park. Very dusty - every time the wind blew you could see a cloud rise up from the paths. The benches were alarmingly rickety, but after hours and hours and miles of walking, we were exhausted. A bunch of us actually fell asleep.
I am of the firm opinion that the national stick in Paris is the cigarette butt. I stepped in some gum and wanted to use a stick to scrape it off with - but no sticks were to be found. Only cigarette butts.
Speaking of cigarettes, they smoke here almost as much as in London. I think Londoners throw their butts away more responsibly though.
This picture and the next one are of the Champs Élysées. You say it "shawnss-uh-leezay," like it's all one word. At least, that's what it sounded like people said. It's a road that extends from the obelisk all the way to the Arc de Triomphe. Very famous. Very posh stores along it. A little more dusty than I'd imagined, but much bigger too.
That's the Arc de Triomphe up ahead. Napoleon had it built after the battle of Austerlitz. If you ever read War and Peace, that's the big battle that takes place early on in the book. It was the peak in the French war against Russia. Not long after, Russia rallied and pushed them out dramatically (think Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture). But the Battle of Austerlitz was a high point for the French - here in Paris I've seen pictures and statues and everything about it.
They just tactfully never mention their subsequent crushing defeat.
Oh, here's one of those beggars I told you about. It's - disconcerting to say the least. You think somebody has fainted or tripped, and then you realize they're just completely prostrating themselves.
Me and the Arc de Triomphe. Also a police officer.
This is the world from the top of the Arc. We have passes that let us go up, but there's no such thing as an elevator. I counted 264 spiral steps, but there was an additional flight that I lost count on. Somewhere in the 280's.
It's interesting - I always thought that there was a road that went underneath the Arc. Instead, it sits in the middle of a huge roundabout. A roundabout with no lanes. It's every car for himself down there. Pedestrians like me go through a tunnel under the street to get to the Arc - probably to keep us from getting killed in the traffic.
These are the BYU girls. We all hunkered down at the top of the Arc de Triomphe to wait for sunset. In the meantime, after taking all the daylight pictures we wanted, we ended up talking. The conversation quickly turned into a question and answer session, with everybody taking turns asking and answering questions like, "how many boys have you kissed?" "What was your most embarrassing moment?"
Well, one girl told a most embarrassing moment, slightly off color, featuring rock bands and drumsticks. Right after she finished, we heard a voice behind us.
"Excuse me, are you from BYU?"
"Ummm, yeah?"
Turns out there was a man and his family from Sandy, Utah. Talk about coincidences! We had a nice chat, but afterwards one of the girls sidled up to me.
"Did he hear us talking about our most embarrassing moments?"
"I think he did," I whispered back.
I think now that's my most embarrassing moment.
The sun turned a blazing red as it went down. No mountains, so it was quite late - nearly ten o clock.
After it set, we crowded to the other side of the platform and watched the lights on the Eiffel Tower turn on. When it gets dark enough, a searchlight whirls in large circles. You can see it coming from the top of the tower in my picture.
This is the underside of the Arc de Triomph. Very gold.
Also beneath the Arc is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Apparently that flame never goes out.
You know what's funny? We keep running into people we know! At Versailles, we saw two of the girls from the study abroad, whose families had come to pick them up. Apparently they too had stopped in Paris to see the sights. Again, under the Arc de Triomphe, we ran into another one of the girls! The funny thing is, we've seen each other every single day for six weeks, so it seems totally normal to see them until we remember that the program is over, and we're all cut loose in a different country.
The metro systems are incredibly tricky to work with. Time and time again, as we traveled around with the other girls, one or more of us would get stuck at the gate, and have to go back and buy another ticket. Lots of people hop the gates or try to push through with people who have tickets. Some are so slick that you barely notice!
I almost regret to say that we helped cheat the system ourselves. As we headed home tonight, the group of us were going through the gates, running our ticket through the machine and pushing through. The gate won't open unless you put a valid ticket through. Beside us, a group of Asian tourists were doing the same. Suddenly, pandemonium arose. The last Asian lady, the grandmother from the looks of it, was stuck on the outside - the machine wouldn't recognize her ticket.
The rest of her family, already past the gates and unable to get back, were calling out instructions. She went back to the help window, but it was empty - nobody was there. She couldn't figure out how to work the automatic machine to buy a new ticket, and was growing increasingly frantic, as was her family. The station was almost completely deserted - nobody was around except us and the Asian family.
Finally the last girl in our group approached her to help. They went back to the window, but still no luck. I don't think the woman could speak English, but she could tell my friend was trying to help.
At last my friend pulled the lady as close behind her as she could, swiped her ticket, and hauled the lady along with her through the gate as fast as possible. The lady and her family were very grateful, and I was proud of my friend for helping, but the whole thing was morally ambiguous.
Should we have helped? That's the right thing to do. None of us had the money to buy the lady a new ticket. She had bought a ticket - she deserved to go through the gates. It wasn't her fault the ticket didn't work.
I guess it narrows down to the fact that nobody was at the help window. If they expect people to obey the rules, they need to provide assistance in following those rules. Otherwise, other people (like my friend) will step in to help out, even if the solution isn't the ideal.
After that, we headed home. As the metro train passed through a short open area, we saw the Eiffel Tower sparkling like it does every hour at night. Now we're home at last, safe and sound and very, very tired. I'm so grateful for our hotel!
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