To the Chateau
Today was our “day trip", a chance to visit somewhere outside the Paris city center, and we chose the grand palace of Versailles. Off we went with a picnic lunch on a half hour train ride into the suburbs. The Paris transportation system does a lot of things better than Boston, but skimping on the A/C is not one of them.
The palace is indeed pretty spectacular, but the enormous line made up our minds that we weren’t going to see the hall of mirrors. Instead we headed for the gardens and ate our lunch looking out over acres of parkland, formal gardens and man-made lakes - just like home, really.
We decided to walk/hike to Marie Antoinette’s “hamlet", a group of cottages the queen built to host her baking school. We balked at the entry fee, and continued our long march back towards the palace. Pretty much exhausted, we boarded the train back to Paris.
We took a Small detour via the “Manga Cafe" to keep E. happy, then back home for dinner and a glass or two of cheap but effective red wine.