Versailles

Another big day in Paris.

Today we headed to Versailles via the metro. Have to say I’ll have strong leg muscles by the time I get home – the steps up and down in the metro (and everywhere else) will maybe get me fit. I’ve walked further in the last 3 days I think than in the past month. Change trains twice and we were at Versailles.

To those who have never been here this place is unimaginable. The palace is enormous and the surrounding grounds are expansive – I am struggling to think of a comparison but I would say they are much bigger even than the botanic gardens X 10 in Melbourne. What could they possibly need all that land for?

Inside the palace again is that display of enormous wealth everywhere you look. To me the main palace was very over done, but in the Grand Trianon palace I found the furnishing to be more subdued and tasteful. Again we say ‘Is there any wonder the people revolted’.  We were able to gain a sense of history of France right back to beginning. There was a huge gallery of battle paintings right back to 800BC –they seemed to be always at war. 

This really is a must see in France.

From Versailles we headed back to Paris and the Musee de l’Orangerie. Here there was a gallery of Monet’s water lily series of paintings. I thought they would be just small paintings, but they are a series of wall murals – 8 of them about 20-30 metres long and 2 metres high. Along with the Monet works there were paintings by Cezanne, Modigliani, Picasso, Degas to name a few.

By this stage we were pretty well stuffed so headed back to the hotel to do the laundry. It is our last day in Paris tomorrow and we plan on a visit to Sacre Coeur and then the Moulin Rouge at night.