Day 17 - Europe 2010

Today we had planned a trip out to Versailles where you find the lavish palace and grounds of the famous King Louis XVI.  I had been looking forward to this trip more than anything else we would be doing in Europe besides the British Museum and the Louvre.  Sadly, it did not turn out as I had hoped.

We started off on the wrong foot pretty quickly when we got to the train station with our train waiting a hop, skip, and jump away but a turnstile blocking our entrance.  Why is this here and why now?  The train was leaving in just a minute or two and we didn’t know why we suddenly needed a ticket just to access the platform.  We have Eurail passes, let us on!  Agh!  There was a help desk right by the turnstile but apparently whoever was posted there didn’t feeling like being at work right at the moment.  So we had to miss that train and go find a line to stand in to get help.  The line took forever and when it was finally our turn they told us we just needed some free ticket to get through the turnstile but we had to get them somewhere else in the station.  Dah!  So we stood in another line and got our tickets and found another train shortly thereafter.

I was so irritated by the whole thing that I took my gun out, more commonly known as my hand, and “shot” Nick in the knee a few times.  He had no reaction except to say, “Well you’re on your own from here on out.”  I thought he was mad that I had fake-shot his knee but when I asked why and he said, “Because I’ve only got one leg.”  So at least Nick got me laughing on the train.

Although our Metro ride was 20 minutes and our train ride was only ten and the walk there was another ten, somehow the whole thing took us two hours.  Part of the reason was I had to go to the bathroom pretty bad, which is a very bad situation in Europe with its lack of public restrooms, so that sent us searching.  We found a little restroom but when I put in the money to go inside it said something in French that we didn’t understand and the money spat back out.  Fine!  So I had to use one at the palace which had a good fifteen minute long line.  Sigh.  All this work just to urinate!

So we didn’t end up in the palace until around noon and I was actually a little disappointed with it.  The outside looks very cool but the inside didn’t seem much different than a few other palaces I had seen, including the Residenz.  After a while, the room decorations and the furnishings all look the same and I lose interest, although it was cool to see the paintings of Marie Antoinette.  The Hall of Mirrors was also lackluster compared to my expectations, though I’m not sure if it was because of the dark clouds outside – Paris had been cloudy and cold our whole time here – making for a dim room that would have otherwise been bright with its many windows and mirrors.  I suppose the opera house would have been neat to see but for some reason it was closed.  And our free audio guide was downright boring.  They talk mostly about the artwork and furnishings in each room and I’m thinking, “Hello!?  I want the history!”  Not to say the palace was bad.  I am sure I would have been more impressed if I had not already seen something similar.

Unfortunately, the dullest part of the whole Versailles experience – the Palace – was the one I got to spend the most time on.  The best part, including Marie Antoinette’s little outlying hamlet and the extensive gardens filled with incredible fountains, I got seriously cheated on.  The gardens are insanely huge and would take a good two hours to fully explore, maybe three if you’re really into it.  Normally the gardens are free except on weekends when they run the fountains, then it’s ten bucks a head.  Well, I wanted to pay the extra money to see the fountains but when we went on through they weren’t even on!  What the heck!?  Then we went back and got a flyer and saw that they only run them in the morning until around 11am and then from 3:30pm to 5:30pm.  How lame!  It was 2:30pm at the moment so we decided we would take the walk up to Marie Antoinette’s hamlet and the other smaller palace beyond the gardens and then come back to see the fountains.

Well that was a bad plan, though nothing would have turned out all too grand any way I did it, as you will see.  Just walking from the palace to the smaller palace – their home away from home - beyond the gardens takes a good 25 to 30 minutes.  Then we wasted our time going through the small palace which didn’t offer anything very different from what we had already seen.  By that time, it was already 3:45pm and we were running short on time to see the fountains, now a 30 minute walk behind us. 

But I really didn’t want to miss Marie Antoinette’s domain.  So we started through her own little mansion by the mini-palace but after a few rooms I boogied outta there because I didn’t want to see more of the same thing!  Instead we went through her garden area which was incredibly charming.  I started feeling this irritation at having finally found something very cool but not being able to stop and enjoy it because I had to run over to see the fountains before they turned off, which I definitely didn’t want to miss since I paid extra to see it! 

Then, we came upon her hamlet – she had it made to mimic the village life of her subjects so she could get away to simpler living when desired - which I thought would consist of a small house or two.  But it was its own tiny little village complete with a large pond filled   with fish and swans and surrounded by willows and cute little bridges!  Oh my goodness, it was so picturesque!  It was seriously painful to zip through there, snap what pictures I could, and practically run to the fountains!  I wanted to stay and enjoy the swans and the field with its cute little bundles of hay and all the little farms and the rows of potted flowers!  Agh, it was painful!

So I made it to the first big fountain just a minute or two before 5pm.  Okay, I had a half hour left to see what I could of the fountains before they shut off.  So I took a few pictures and suddenly the water stopped flowing.  I stood there shocked.  What just happened?  I asked Nick to see the flyer again and I read it and it said all fountains were on from 3:30pm to 5pm and then just one fountain went on from 5:20pm to 5:30pm.  Oh my gosh.  I had read it wrong.  I had read it wrong and now my dream to see the fountains was completely shattered.

I just stood there.  I stood there feeling so upset at how everything had played out.  I had paid to see the fountains and instead I got a whopping two minutes.  I had loved Marie Antoinette’s hamlet and gardens and I had to rush through just so I could have my two-minute fountain experience.  Everything that I had really wanted to see, do, and experience – besides the palace itself – had been only a small sampling, and this on one of my top three things I wanted to do in Europe.

We walked to the 5:20pm to 5:30pm fountain and I cried - I know, how dramatic!  I cried the whole way there, I cried all while the fountain was running, and I cried some more afterward.  It didn’t help that the fountains I passed looked so awesome and must have looked that much more amazing when they were actually running.  It didn’t help that the fountain I did see, my little treasure that was on for ten minutes, was really awesome and a sampling of what I could have seen throughout the gardens.

So I sat there in front of the last fountain and had open my map of the gardens, wiping my tears away and figuring I could at least go and explore the other cool stuff in the gardens before we left so I could try and make up my loss.  But as we were about to get up this cop came by and told us to leave because the gardens were closing.  What!?  I had heard that during the summer the gardens usually remained open until around sunset, which would give us at least two hours to explore.  But apparently on this day they had decided 5:30pm was it.  So my chance for redemption was slipped out from under me even before it began.  We got lost getting back to the train station, I nearly peed my pants again, it was freezing cold and rainy, and I walked away from my Versailles experience feeling hollow.

The whole problem was the timing and, of course, our lack of correct information.  If we had arrived first thing in the morning, we would have had time to do everything we wanted to, palace, hamlet, fountains, and all.  Working with the time we did arrive, something would have gotten cut or zipped through no matter the order I did it in or the timing of the fountains, though I would have preferred to zoom through the palace than anything else.  But we weren’t planning on delays at the train station or the whole bathroom search – darn my bladder and darn Europe and its lack of bathrooms – nor did we even know the fountains had time limits and that the place would suddenly close at 5:30pm as opposed to much later.  So my lesson was that it pays to make sure you have the most up to date information, it pays to read things carefully, and it pays to go as early as possible so delays don’t take away your opportunities.

Despite my learned lessons, I am still uber bummed about Versailles and I will have to make it up someday.  At the end of the day, Nick was looking at a map of the place and said, “Yeah, we really hardly saw any of this.”  I said, “I know!  That’s why I was crying.  I was so disappointed.”  Oh well.  Of all our days in Europe, we have had few bad ones so I have to be grateful for the all the good.

PHOTOS:

A view of the front of the Palace of Versailles.  The whole thing is much bigger than this little section but it shows you the lavishness.

Here is the king's bedroom, or his bed rather.  They definitely liked the canopies but I guess it makes sense since the sun rises so early here and sets so late.

The famous picture of Marie Antoinette with her children was hung up on one of the walls.

The famous Hall of Mirrors.  The Treaty of Versailles, ending WWI, was signed here.

These guys were getting really irritating.  They were just making out shamelessly in just about every room.  They would go on straight for like five minutes with people just passing on by like what the heck.  Get a room guys!  So I thought I would get a picture and remember the ridiculousness.

One of the fountain statues behind the palace.

Here is a view of the gardens, showing maybe 5% of the whole thing.

Nick at the Temple of Love in Marie Antoinette's garden area.  He's feeling it.

There were lots of little streams and ponds and this area was really enchanting.

One of the little homes in Marie's hamlet.  Everything was so picturesque.

Another sample of the little hamlet and the big pond in the middle, complete with swans and fish and lots of beautiful shrubbery.

And the one fountain that I got to really experience.  Oh well.  Hopefully there will be a next time.