Versaille, Des Egouts, and Pere Lachaise

Train to Versaille, the Palace, and The Gardens.

The RER-C Train Station was a quick 10 minute walk from the hotel. We stopped for croissants and walked down Avenue Rapp and crossed Quai Branly to the Pont de L'Alma Metro station. We bought round trip tickets to Versaille from the little office on the corner and descended the stairs to the train platform. Rick Steves told us that any train whose name begins with "V" will take us to Versailles. I kept forgetting to watch the train, so we had to ask someone, who was very helpful and friendly. Even though the trains depart every 15 minutes, I knew that we had to take the first train in the morning so that we could get a jump on the crowds. Our train finally arrived and we hopped on board. We found our seats and then settled in for a 30 minute or so train ride. We rode for a while to the last stop at Versailles R.G. (Rive Gauche), and then our new friend told us when it was time to get off of the train.

We used our train tickets to get through the turnstiles and set off on a 10 minute walk to the palace. There are a few cafes here to grab a quick bite before you tour the Palace. We weren't hungry so we walked through. Kalen prepared well for the day with his jacket. He's loaned the umbrella to me, so it was pretty comfortable. It drizzled off and on, not much to fuss about. The Palace was surrounded by peddlers with large rings holding Eiffel Tower stuff, trick birds, and other junk. You could buy four keychains for 1 Euro. Such a deal! We moved through the main palace gates and found the entrance line. We had our Museum Passes, so we didn't have to wait long at the entrance.

The Palace was incredible. The flow through it was smooth as long as you learned to work around the big groups stopping for tour chats. They were out of English maps at 10:30 AM, so we just used our handy Rick Steves guide to continue the tour. I like the decorating style with lots of red and gold. We had to time our way through the larger tour groups. They all followed someone with a stick or an extended, unopened umbrella. They kept in a tight group, so it was hard to cut through them. Better to just let them move the herd through and then cross the path.

The docorating was done with a lot of reds and gold, just my style. The rooms were so fully decorated that it is hard to take photos to grab it all. The ceilings all had paintings (makes my popcorn ceilings at home seem a little bland). The Hall of Mirrors has recently been refurbished and is now open to the public. I understand that large sized mirrors were new and that this hall represented the latest and greatest in this technology. It must have been breath taking to walk in here with all of the reflected light during the day and the candle light from the chandeliers at night.

The Gardens were HUGE with fountains and plants and statues. We walked about midway to the start of a mile long canal. We had lunch at a little stand, complete with the fresh French bread, ham, cheese and tomatoes. So, there we sat, lunching in the Gardens of Versaille! We walked the other side of the gardens then boarded the train back to Paris for more adventure.

Des Egouts de Paris (The Sewers of Paris)

The Sewers of Paris are, well, the sewers of Paris. I don't really have anything to compare as I have not been able to go beneath other city streets. It was "a little" smelly. The absolute worse part was that we had to cross over the open area on a grated walkway and I hate grated walkways. This is one of those things that you just need to do once, or not.

Anyway, I thought that since Kalen had seen "Phantom of the Opera" in London, he would appreciate seeing the world of Jean Valjean. He reminded me that Jean Valjean was a character in "Les Miserables" and not in Phantom. The photo is of Kalen standing next to an actual grated entrance and a sign which describes the world of Jean Valjean. As if my enthusiasm was not enough to peak his interest, maybe the sign will. I took a close up of the sign so that he can print it later and tell all of his friends. See, he is smiling. Or is he gritting his teeth?

Oh. Well it sounded like a good idea when I was making the plans. And he does want to get into commercial development, so it would be good for him to understand infrastructure. He said that he will hire someone to do this part, as he is not AT ALL interested. This photo is of Kalen walking real fast in a skinny pathway on the side of the open thing. Not really open, as it has a little covering on it. This may be a little blurry as I was trying real hard not to laugh.

Pere Lachaise - Cemetary to visit Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, and others.

My good friend Rick Steves suggested to take Bus #69 all the way to the end to tour Pere Lachaise. When he says "all the way to the end", that is what he means. Do not get off at the Pere Lachaise stop because that is at the bottom of the hill. A climb in the bus and two more stops takes you to the top of the hill. This was a smart move as the cemetary is all downhill from here. (hee hee)

Kalen has been on treks through cemetaries with me with the genealogy work that we (I) do. He's pretty used to this. The good news is that we had a fairly good set of instructions and a map. We were stumped one time as some of the streets aren't marked but all in all moved fairly easily through those that we wanted to visit. The photo here is of Jim Morrison's grave (with all of the flowers on it), as all of the dedicated followers stopped by to pay homage.

The second photo is just a general one of the cemetary, as it has a lot of above ground stones and looks different than most that I have seen.

It was an interesting tour. The bus went through a lot of different neighborhoods and today we were able to cross some of the "odd extras" off of the list.