Paris - Palace of Versailles

Last Friday, 3 Aug 2007, we (Helen, Helen's brother David, and Rick) walked over to the Waterloo rail station at 4:30AM to catch the 5:34AM Eurostar to Paris. The train goes to Dover and then through the Channel Tunnel (Chunnel) to Calais France and then to Paris. After a 3hr ride, we were in Gare Du Nord rail station. Wonderful way to travel to Paris.

We immediately, purchased transportation and entry tickets to "Palace of Versailles". While taking the metro to get to our train, David forgot (or was not aware) to retrieve his ticket when we entered the first metro station. Since he did not have his ticket, he could not go through the entry gate to the second metro stop. After Helen tried to explain that we just purchased the ticket and David accidentally left it at the prior stop, we had to purchase an additional travel ticket (5.60 euros). When we arrived about 1hr later, there were thousands of people queuing to get into the Palace. We elected to stroll around the magnificent jardin (garden) at Versailles. The flowers were in full bloom. We found a nice quite place to eat our lunch and enjoyed the view of the jardin. We then continued across the jardin to Maria-Antoinette's Estates. This area just opened to the public in June 2006 and was her private escape area on the Palace grounds. Very impressive.

After a couple hours, we then entered into the Palace, which was built for King Louie XIV in 1682. This palace is massive and every room decorated from ceiling to floor with paintings, jewels, furniture, and more portraits of the Royal Family. We lasted until about 5:30 and enjoyed every moment.

We were able to take the train back in Paris and after a short walk we arrived at our hotel for the night. We picked up some wine and food and then walked over to the Left Bank of the Seine river near Notre Dame to eat our dinner with the Parisians lining the bank.

To view more photos of our first day in Paris and Versailles, click here.