Versailles (and more Paris)

Our second–and last–full day in Paris we made the trip out to the Palace of Versailles. It was quite the adventure to even get to the Palace. The route we planned on taking (the RER C commuter train) was closed for the next six weeks for maintenance work. So between me speaking very little French and the assistants at the train stations speaking very little English, we somehow made it to Versailles.

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The last time I was at Versailles, it was late May, during the week and rainy so there weren’t a ton of people. This time it was completely different. We got there about 45 minutes after the Palace opened and it probably took 45 minutes of standing in line before getting inside. I was amazed at the amount of people. It actually wasn’t as enjoyable this time around, sadly. All that aside, it was great to revisit. There was a special exhibit about the American Revolution from the French’s perspective. It was super interesting to read about it from their view – which is that the French did all of the work and won the whole thing.

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After we left the Palace, we stopped at Pizza Via Veneto for lunch and walked down to Cathedral Saint Louis of Versailles before heading back to the train station. We had more Paris to explore!

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Once back in the city, we made a pit stop at our AirBnb, grabbed food for a picnic and headed to the Tuileries Garden. Turns out you can’t sit in the grass in that park. So…we had to scout out a bench and pretend it was grass. I also had to hit up Pierre Hermé to compare their macarons to Laduree’s. I say PH has more inventive flavors while Laduree has those classic flavors, but they’re pretty even with each other’s quality.

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We watched the sunset from our attic apartment (beautiful) and then decided to go see the Moulin Rouge all lit up at night. We only had the next morning in Paris and then it was on to our next stop…Switzerland!

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–m.