Today was our first full day in Paris! Our plan was to head to Versailles to see the chateau and gardens. Tracie and I got up at a reasonable hour for us (7:00am) and realized that not many restaurants are open before 9:00am here. Even the McDonald's across the street doesn't open until 10:00am! All that we could really find was a bakery serving quiches and pastries. It seemed that it was pastries or the hotel's 12 euro (zoinks!) buffet. So, we got our first lesson in French culture and went to the bakery.
After the breakfast adventure, Tracie and I met up with Casey, Rick and the 3 kids (collectively known as the Fromily) and started our journey to Versailles with a 15 minute walk to the RER station. The RER is the commuter rail portion of the Paris public transit system which reaches into the middle and outer suburbs. After spending several minutes trying to get the ticket vending machine to take a credit card, we went to the ticket window, managed to buy the correct fares from the nice lady and get to the train.
We successfully navigated two train transfers under the streets of Paris, but as we neared Versailles, we discovered that we were on a train which was the correct line, but took a slightly different route, leaving us a couple of kilometers from where we wanted to be. It then took us 45 minutes, 2 more stations and a lot of puzzling over a map and train arrival info board to deduce how to get to our intended destination. Note that most of the puzzling was due to the fact that everything was in French. The French aren't really big on providing information in other languages. But, we were successful in finding the correct route and finally arriving in the heart of Versailles.
By this point, we were all quite hungry, so we stopped at a pizza place for lunch, then walked to the Chateau de Versailles. It really takes the meaning of the word "chateau" to a whole different level...the place is huge, plain and simple. Casey wanted to see the gardens, so we didn't see the inside of the chateau, but the weather was fabulous and the gardens are amazing in their own right. You could easily spend a couple of days wandering through the gardens and still not see everything. There's ponds, fountains, statues, topiaries, lawns and trees that go on and on...they're truly amazing.
Once we'd spent the afternoon in the gardens (and gotten slightly sunburnt in the process), we headed back to the RER station. Getting back to the hotel was much faster, as we managed to travel detour-free this time. The trains were fairly crowded at this time of day, but even so, they all ran on time.
Tracie's back was pretty tired by the time we arrived at the hotel, so we decided to find take-out. French culture lesson #2: there's not much take out in France. Fortunately, we had McDonald's across the street. OK, I'm sure some people are saying, "You went to Paris and got dinner from McDonald's? How lame!" Yeah, sure, maybe, but we each had a Royale with Cheese, so next time we see Pulp Fiction, we can say we've had one.
On the itinerary for tomorrow: Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower and (hopefully) some tasty coffee at a Paris cafe!
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