Can We Look at the Gardens Now?

On Saturday the 24^th I went with the program to Versailles. The president of Central College and his wife and the study abroad dean at Central joined us on this adventure. I got up early so I could do some grocery shopping and go to the boulangerie so I could make my lunch for going to Versailles. The group was going to be meeting up at the RER at noon so we could take the train out there together. I texted Lily and knocked on her door to see if she wanted to join me at 11:20ish to take the metro to get to the RER. I never heard anything so I left because I didn’t want to be late and I had a feeling it would take me about 30 minutes to get there. I thankfully got to the meeting point on time! I was only a few minutes late but the group was still standing on the quai! Thank the Lord! Lily hadn’t left the foyer yet so she was just going to meet up the group at Versailles. I sat with Kacey on the way out there and we talked the whole way there. It didn’t take as long as I thought it would. We then had to walk a little bit from the train station to get to Versailles. It is huge and amazing!                       

The Chateaux of Versailles

  


We had lunch by the pond and it was beautiful!  The weather was hot!  But it was nice!  We spent time just relaxing and eating before we headed off to our tour.  We got a guided tour of les appartements privés des rois (the private apartments where the kings slept).  It was really neat to see some rooms that a lot of people don’t get to see but sadly we couldn’t take any pictures in those rooms.  The tour was all in French and the man spoke slowly and clearly so that everyone could understand since we have all different language levels in our program.  It was very informative and interesting to learn about.  After the tour we then split up and visited the rest of the chateau on our own.  I hung out with Kacey and we saw the hall of mirrors and a lot of other rooms.  It was so cool but there were so MANY tourists and they were really pushy!  Oh my goodness!  They would shove past you to get a picture of something!  I was quite annoyed.  Looking at the inside of the castle was very cool but I was more interested in the gardens.   Every time we would walk past a window I would be checking out the gardens wondering when we could go explore those.  Now don’t get me wrong I really enjoyed exploring the inside of the castle but the gardens felt less crowded and there were some really cool areas that Kacey and I happened upon while just roaming around!  Also the gardens at Versailles are HUGE!!  We did not have time to look at all of it but they were beautiful!  Lily joined Kacey and I which was fine because it seemed like she wasn’t with anyone else in the group.  We walked so much and I loved it!  I had so much fun and my legs and feet didn’t start hurting until I got home.  Versailles really is very impressive and just huge!  It feels like it goes on forever and ever, especially the gardens!  It is also amazing to think that the castle was also covered in gold!  They are currently working on restoring that and it is cool to see what it looked like back when the king was living there!  Here are some pictures so you can see what I saw!

The Hall of Mirrors

Looking out onto the gardens from inside the chateau.

One of my favorite picutes of that I took of the gardens at Versailles.

Me standing in front of Versailles.  They are working on restoring all the gold on the building!