Versailles

 Our journey today took us to Versailles. The palace is huge and ornate as are the gardens. As you will probably notice from our pictures, our favorite part was the ceilings. It is amazing that people actually lived here. Our least favorite part of the visit was the crowds. There were many large tour groups that we did our best to scurry around. We were not very interested in the paintings, which I'm sure we would have had a better understanding of the palace if we stopped and read about them. To be honest, the portraits and paintings, were not too impressive compared with what we have seen in other museums. The crowds were annoying and definitely took away from the experience. I can't imagine what it's like in the Summer. The gardens were really big and beautiful, but we preferred the Tuileries gardens. The gardens here are beautifully sculpted but there were very few flowers, so the color was limited. It probably didn't help that the day was dizzily and gray.

We were actually happy to leave and explore the city of Versailles. It is a lovely town. We visited another Notre Dame. I believe the architect of this Church also worked on the Versailles Palace. We had lunch in a cute little restaurant. I think we were the only non-French there. My understanding is that most tourists just go to the Palace and bypass the town. We were glad to explore it a bit. It was peaceful after dealing with the crowds. The train ride went smoothly after a little help from a kind woman in the station. We have been very impressed with how nice everyone is. Don't believe the negative comments you hear about the French. 

                                            
                                            lines at the entrance






                                                        one of the bedrooms


                                                views from the palace














                                                                Chapel


















                                            the gardens are impressive, below is Notre-dame Versailles








                                        Notre-Dame Versailles, the street was lined with these flowers                                                      






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