Versailles

The day we got into Paris we went to bed exhausted at 9:00 pm, but woke up wide awake at 3:00 am. After trying to fall back asleep and then giving up and calling our family we decided to get ready and head out to Versailles. Nothing was open when we left for Versailles, and by the time we got out to Versailles at 7:00 am on a Saturday there was still very little open. So we ate breakfast at a cafe, wandered around the town a bit since it is old and cool, and wondered when the sun was finally going to come up (not until 8:30 am!).

The sun was just starting to come up here, I had to lighten the picture, so you could see me so it looks a little pixelated.

The Palace of Versailles is located just outside of Paris and housed the royal family of France from the reign of Louis XIV until Louis XVI (at which time the family was forced to return to Paris at the beginning of the French Revolution, 1789). It was originally built as a hunting lodge for Louis XIII in 1624 and was expanded mostly to it's enormous current size under Louis XIV when he moved the royal court there from Paris in 1682.

At 8:00 am the gardens at the Versailles Palace opened so we wandered around there for a while. The only people out besides us were runners. Robert thought it would be awesome to live nearby and take your morning run through the gardens of Versailles. Really, that would be the best way to see the garden since they are enormous. All that you can see behind me are part of the gardens.

This is the view of the back of the Palace. The advantage of being there before it opened was that there weren't a hundred other tourists in these pictures.

As soon as the Palace opened at 9:00 am we were one of the first ones to get our tickets. So we went in just after the tour groups who were there at opening, but since they move as a group there were still very few people in the front courtyard. The room directly in the center was the king's room.

The room directly in the center was the king's room., farthest back.

Louis XIV built his own chapel in the Palace so he didn't have to leave to go to church,

The most exciting room for me to see at Versailles was the Hall of Mirrors. At the time it was built mirrors were very expensive, and to have so many mirrors showed off the power of the French monarchy. During the time the royal court was located at Versailles the room was used day to day as a walkway with people passing through to get to the residences of the King and residence of the Queen.

But the Hall of Mirrors did serve as the location of many celebrations of births and other parties and official functions. At the end of the Franco-Prussian War, William I was declared emperor of the newly established German Empire in the Hall of Mirrors, an insult to the defeated French. Another notable event to take place in the Hall of Mirrors was the signing of the peace treaty that ended WWI, The Treaty of Versailles (depicted in the painting below).

The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors by William Orpen.

Looking out towards the gardens.

This made me laugh, Robert was taking a picture of himself but he didn't want to put down his audio guide.

Archway into the Hall of Mirrors

The King's bedroom. Robert looks so excited ; ). Everything the king did was witnessed by a lot of people, even getting up in the morning. People would be lined up to see this great event.

The Queen's room.

Where the King and Queen would eat dinner. A very late dinner, like at 10:00 pm, and everyone would turn out to watch this great event as well.

The Coronation of Napoleon. Remember we saw the original in the Louvre? This is the replica that the artist painted from memory right after he finished the original. The only difference is that one of the women's dresses is pink in this one.

 Long hallway with paintings of all of France's wars...

 As with the Louvre even the ceilings were very ornate.

Up next is a continuation of our super long first day in France and the last France blog post, the Arc du Triomphe!

The Catacombs of Paris

This is what we went to see the first afternoon we were in Paris, after we finally made it through customs at the airport (the line moved sooo slow), so visiting old bones was our first excursion in Paris. But it was close to our hotel and something that was on my list of things to do in Paris, although Robert was skeptical. I told him it would be cool!

The story of the catacombs is that during the late 1700's the cemeteries in Paris were filled past capacity and had been a health hazard for some time. The police prefect who was in charge of finding something to do about the cemeteries was also in charge of making sure that an array of underground limestone quarries was stabilized and wouldn't cave in anymore. So he had the great idea of combining these two projects and removing all the bones and bodies from the cemeteries and throwing them into the old limestone quarry tunnels.

In the limestone tunnels after descending 130 steps, no bones yet.

During WW II the French Resistance used the tunnels, and so did the Germans.

This was carved by a worker in the limestone quarry over the course of years in his spare time. It is a building where he was formerly imprisoned (someplace I'm sure was embedded in his mind). Unfortunately for the worker while he was carving stairs for people to come see his great work the tunnel collapsed and he was killed.

Back to the catacombs story. So in 1786 they had a ceremony and started removing the bodies from the cemeteries. For the next two years they would transport the bones by night in black veiled carts followed by priests singing the service for the dead. They deposited the remains of six million people into the catacombs. At first they just dumped all the bones in, but twenty or so years later, at the height of Romanticism, the head of the Paris mine inspection service decided to organize the bones neatly and form patterns in the bones. There are even patterns of skulls shaped like hearts and in the form of churches

When they organized the bones they put in plaques with quotes and poems having to do with death.

 "Believe that everyday is your last."

They also put in plaques listing which cemetery the bones in that area came from and what year they were deposited there.
July 2, 1809

This is an example of how the limestone tunnels would collapse the ground above. The ceiling would slowly break away until it broke through the top and gave way. Now they closely monitor the tunnels to prevent things like this from forming and reinforce this so it doesn't deteriorate.

At the end Robert told me that he had to admit he had his doubts, but it was pretty cool.

Paris Food

I loved seeing all the quintessential French food around Paris. Robert thought I was a little crazy stopping in the middle of the walkway to take most of these pictures. I was just super excited to see...

a Fromagerie (cheese stand)!

a Boulangerie (bakery)!

With beautiful macaroons. This was the first time I saw macaroons, but we saw them all over.

Escargot (snails)! Tastes like chewy garlic and butter.

Eating a baguette for breakfast. The church behind me is the Elgise Notre-Dame at Versailles, built in 1686 by command of Louis XIV. No biggy ;).

Sunday we set off to find a patisserie (bakery specializing in pastries) the concierge suggested and instead ran into a large Sunday market. I loved seeing the fresh fruits and vegetables, flowers,

...and the dead plucked chickens with decorative feathers still attached

and hanging upside down.

Variety of mushrooms

The Fromagier where we got some cheese for breakfast. We never did find the patisserie.

My breakfast from the market.

Robert enjoys his port salut cheese and croissant.

Nutella filled donut.

And finally, a "hot dog." I like how even the hot dog is french- on french bread covered with cheese.

Selfies

Robert "surprised" me with a trip to Paris for our ten year anniversary! I say "surprise" because he planned it and arranged for everything, but told me about it two weeks before we left. I'm a planner and I kept bugging him about making plans for our anniversary (like, choosing a restaurant to go to for a nice dinner...) so he finally told me one night, "We aren't going to be around on our anniversary," and also we need to renew your passport. He didn't tell me where we were going until the next day though after I had been guessing all day. Paris, here we come! 

Robert knew Paris was #1 on list of places I wanted to visit so I was very excited. I've taken six years of French in middle school and high school so I've heard a lot about French language (and yet I speak French pretty awfully), French culture, French architecture, French history, etc. It was so cool to see it all in person!

I blog mostly so I can remember things we have done, and so our families can keep up with what is going on with us. So I'll be blogging a lot about our four days in Paris because I want to remember everything about this trip. Sorry if it's a bit of overload, but this is mostly for me! It was a fantastic, dream come true trip. To start off my Paris series posts, here are all the selfies we took in the various places we were at. (I'll be coming back to blog about each of this places individually)

Selfie in the Catacombs

Selfie in front of Versailles

Selfie in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles.

Selfie in front of the Arc de Triomphe

 Selfie in front of the Louvre.

Selfie in front of Notre Dame.

 And of course, selfie in front of the Eiffel Tower (on the actual day of our anniversary).