Paris 07.17.09

I went to Versailles today…..it was so great. It is the estate that Mary Antoinette was filmed in. Louis XIV lived there. It is huge, miles and miles long filled with beautiful gardens and such. We got a tour and saw some great rooms in the palace and then walked through the gardens for a while. Mary Antoinette also built a small village for her when she wanted to get away. It took all day to see all that we did and we still didn’t see all of it. There were flowers everywhere you looked and fountains. Also everything was arranged symmetrically so if there was a fountain it had a square of grass on each side of it and they all were extravagant. We were there until 6pm and we started at 10 am! Everything inside of the palace blew me away also. How long it must have taken them to build and decorate all of the great things in it I can’t even imagine the kind of work it must have been. I think I enjoyed Mary Antoinettes countryside homes the best. She wanted something that reminded her of her past home so she had these built. They looked like they came straight out of a fantasy book.
After Versailles we went to the arc of triumph. All of the streets lead to this arc and it is in the center of champs elysees, We climbed the tall spiral staircase all the way to the top and looked out in to the city and of course it started raining on us, again! So we didn’t stay up there as long as we would have liked, but it was fun to see how big Paris actually is. We then walked down Champs Elysees and window shopped. We didn’t buy anything, because that is a very high end area. Stores like Gucci and Prada are there. Afterwards we walked to the metro station in the rain once again and came straight back to the hotel to get rested up for yet another full day tomorrow!!