Paris - Days 4 & 5
Day 4
One day, one destination, one word. Versailles. I can't be sure, but it's very likely THE most beautiful palace in the world. Sorry, Buckingam, sorry, Schonbrun, sorry, Neuschwanstein and others. You are just not Versailles' league.
It was built in late 17th century by Louis XIV (The Sun King) as the new royal palace; old royal palace was Louvre; perhaps you remember I mentioned it in the post for the Day 1. Versailles is situated on the outskirts of Paris, so it took us about an hour and a half to reach it (2x subway, and then the train). I feel like repeating myself, but you know what happened when we arrived there? Waiting in the queue, of course. First for the tickets. Then to enter. Almost an hour. Tons and tons of people. I got the feeling that Versailles' income from tourists is bigger than some small countries national yearly income.
Versailles is... huge. Impressive. Magnificent. Megalomanic (is this a proper word?). Blazing. Immense. Majestic. Grandiose. At a certain point, I said to Alen: "Well, I am some sort of a writer, which means I know with words, but when looking to this, I am speechless." Just a few statistical information:
Floor space - 67,000 m2
Number of windows - 2,153
Number of rooms - 700
Staircases - 67
Paintings in the museum’s collection - 6,123
Drawings in museum’s collection 1,500
Engravings in museum’s collection - 15,034
Sculptures in museum’s collection - 2,102
Pieces of furniture and objets d’art - 5,210
Can you believe this?!?!
Now, where was I? Oh yes. Of course, only a small part of the palace is opened for the tourists - if you wanted to see all 700 rooms, it would probably take weeks! *lol* And even so, you can spend the whole day in the palace and the gardens. The rooms are so beautifully decorated, and there is not one square inch of the floors, walls and ceilings that is not carefully decorated. So, enough talking, let's see one tiny part of it...
(Part of the palace in the background; you see how huge it is?) Louis XIV:
Part of the palace:
Rooms, walls, ceilings...
King's bedroom:
Queen's bedroom:
After the palace, the gardens. Size: 800 ha. 'nuff said.
And a poor tourist is supposed to see all those beauties in a day?
Well, here's the tiny fraction:
I wanted to see more fountains, but on that last day, my feet finally betrayed me and started to hurt. So, after some three hours of sightseeing, we returned to the city.
On the first day, I said that on Day 4 we were supposed to visit Louvre. We didn't. There was no time. :( Versailles simply took us too much time; if we had wanted to return to Louvre, we would've had to stay in Versailles for only one hour, and it is just not enough for seeing it. Oh, what am I talking about? A day is barely enough!
So, we didn't go inside Louvre. :( But I don't regret; at least, not much. Versailles is far too magnificent and I am glad we stayed there longer.
So.
Returned to the city. Took a photo of a nice fountain in Latin Quarter.
Found the restaurant. Ate. Delicious and cheap.
Feet hurt, btw.
Bought the souvenirs and presents. Returned to the hotel. Sleep. *thud*
Day 5
Breakfast. Bus. Airport.
Guess what happened on the airport? What were some of the most used words in those reports? "Waiting in queue". Well, as Charles de Gaule is a huge airport and dozens of planes fly each hour, our plane waited for some time in the queue until it was our time to fly! *lol*
Returning home. Playing with kitties, who were so happy to see us, especially Tommy. *melts*
The End.