Louis Louis

We left Paris! It was a sad goodbye, made a little sweeter by a visit to the patisserie and the playground while Jay cleaned our AirBnB townhouse. It was a nice spot, but we did leave it cleaner than we found it... We packed all our stuff back in the car by 10 AM, which we thought was an early start, and drove out to the amazing palace of Versailles. It was a gorgeous day! Alas, that means that many other people also decided to go to Versailles. We were first faced with the parking challenge- all the lots near the palace were full, unless you count some sketchy parking places along the edges. Unfortunately, I had my car towed too many times during my Boston days to park anywhere that is not clearly legal. We finally found a spot in an underground garage and then trekked over to the palace. And there we found an enormous line, snaking all around the entrance.

By now, we were quite accustomed to lines. One of us took the boys to the bathroom, then one of us got out the snacks, then one of us followed Lanna as she toddled around. Luckily, the line moved quickly and before we had time for Sammy to finish peeling his clementine (thank goodness this takes him forever and keeps him occupied!), we were in!

We took a selfie. You can tell I'm new at being the selfie stick, since you completely cannot see Versailles right behind us.

But it's right here!

Lanna kept on toddling around.

Showing her belly button (and everything else) to anyone who would look. Luckily no one threw any beads at her.

We headed off to tour the fancy rooms, audio guides in hand. Alas, as usual, the audio guides were taken over by small children who love to push buttons, so we didn't learn too much about Versailles. They had some amazing models of the palace as it changed over the years. Joey wanted to take a picture of each one, but I managed to talk him out of it. Here is one of his better shots.

They also had these cool Versailles 3D movies. Due to the presence of 3 impatient children, we watched them online here post-visit.

http://www.versailles3d.com/en/

We enjoyed the crazy rooms, with ridiculous paintings and over the top furniture. Here are just a few examples:

The Royal Chapel

The Hercules room

And of course, one of my favorites, the king's bed.

The number of rooms, each with their crazy paintings, seemed too much with the 3 kids in tow. But they managed pretty well and no one got in trouble for touching things! Apparently it was okay to relax on the benches near the windows.

At last we made it to the piece de resistance - the hall of mirrors. This pretty much sums up Versailles in a nutshell. The multiple kings named Louis (what is the plural of Louis?) were a rough looking bunch.

http://en.chateauversailles.fr/history/court-people/louis-xiv-time/louis-xiv-

So I'm pretty sure they decorated Versailles in a crazy way so that no one would notice their challenging facial features. That theory does beg the question, why a hall of mirrors?

At least we have cute kids to look at!

After that, we mercifully went out into the gardens where there was fresh air and sunshine! We didn't have too long, since we were heading out to Calais and wanted to arrive before darkness fell (unsuccessful in that goal). But it was so beautiful that we had to walk down to the incredible lake and boats at the bottom.

On the way, there were so many sights to see, but one of our favorites was this grove of trees.

Alas, our idyllic garden walk was just about to end. Joey said to Sammy, "Let's go chase the falling leaves." And he ran off down the path, with Sammy in tow. Just as I was thinking of how beautiful the moment was, Sammy tripped over a stick and smacked his forehead directly into the pavement. He screamed as a giant knot grew and grew. We rushed him to one of the cafes in search of ice. But of course, it's Europe, and they don't have any ice for their drinks! Argh! As Jay carried Sammy back up the long pathway to the palace, he fell asleep (are you supposed to let your kid with mild head trauma fall asleep? Probably not, but it was better than listening to him scream). After his nap, Sammy was fine and his hair nicely covers up his unicorn bruise.

We made our way back to the car and drove off to Calais for a brief respite before heading across (or really under) the pond.