Thursday, April 21, Versailles
We took the Metro from the St Michel station out to Versailles which is a little southwest of Paris.
Arriving there we had to wait in a long line even though we pre-purchased our tickets online.
The line moved fairly quickly though, and soon we were packed like sardines inside the Palace, which was pretty impressive, sort of monumental. People actually lived there? Off with their heads!
The grounds were just as impressive.
Once we left the area immediately surrounding the Palace the crowds thinned and we were able to enjoy another fine day of summer-like weather as we explored the various parts of Versailles.
The Grand Canal, the Palaces of Trianon and Marie Antoinette's Estate.
Just small intimate little places and spaces.
Are you kidding? The pool table was a large as my back yard! Well, not really, but a game of pool must have taken quite a while to complete due to the size of the table and the tiny pockets.
The "Hamlet" was built for Marie Antoinette in 1787. According to the guide she found the Estate a "haven of tranquility". Duh. Lorri kissed the frog but nothing happened. Oh wait! She got me!
The Hamlet was actually my favorite part of Versailles. It's scale was a little easier to comprehend than the Palaces and the buildings made pretty pictures.
We made it back to St Germain and decided to go for some French Italian at Pizza Cesar. It was pretty good and our waiter was particularly entertaining, claiming to speak French, English, Spanish and Italian, he took his self-portrait after taking the photo of us.
A nightcap of Guinness at Corcoran's Irish Pub ended a great day!
Friday, April 22, Museum Pass, Day 1
We bought two-day museum passes and tried to make the most of them. 35 Euros gets you in to 50 or 60 attractions around Paris, including most of the famous museums, churches and monuments, and at many places, allows expedited entry. We started at Musee d'Orsay where you cannot take photos inside. This is the outside.
D'Orsay has quite a collection of Impressionist and other masterpieces of that era. Every time I turned around I was staring at another painting that I had only seen I textbooks until then. It was exhausting so we stopped for a glass of wine before moving on the Rodin Museum.
The Burghers of Calais.
The Three Shades? Pocahontas?
"Now, where did I leave my cell phone?" "OMG! I dropped it in the toilet!"
"Get out of my backpack!"
"I don't know what to make of all this..."
"The Kiss"
Very life-like (for Rodin) woman, "Dance Movement A", "I didn't need that cell phone anyway."
Dinner back at our apartment. And so ends Good Friday. It was very good.
Ireland, New Market and Dingle
Paris, Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday