Chateau de Versailles

The Palace of Versailles, is a royal chateau in Versailles- a wealthy suburb of Paris - some 20 kilometres from the capital. The court of Versailles was the center of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in 1789 after the beginning of the French Revolution. Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy.

It requires a combination of metro trains and RER trains to reach Versailles. We reached around 11 am and it was a slightly windy day with chance of showers. As we stepped out of the station, we found signs and maps guiding us to the Chateau. We found long queues to enter the main palace, hence we decided to explore the gardens first which was a really wise decision!

The gardens cover some 800 hectares of land, landscaped in the classic French Garden style. In addition to the meticulous manicured lawns, parterres of flowers, and sculptures are the fountains, which are located throughout the garden. Dating from the time of Louis XIV and still using much of the same network of hydraulics as was used during the ancient regime, the fountains contribute to making the gardens of Versailles unique. 

While we had kept the whole day to explore the palace and gardens, it simply is not possible to do so in one day - both because of paucity of time and because your legs start to give up after a few hours of walking around in the massive gardens. We could barely cover a quarter of it in the whole day.

We then proceeded to the palace where the entry queue had shortened to about 30 people. The palace is beautiful and its obvious that lot of money has been spent on it since the beginning. A recent estimate has placed the amount spent on Versailles during the Ancien régime as US$2 billion - in all probability an under-evaluation. My favourite part of the palace was the lavishly decorated hall of mirrors though the picture that I took from my phone doesn't do justice to it - hence am uploading the one from its wiki page instead

Around 5 pm we decided to call it a day and walked back to the station to catch the RER back into the capital. The breathtaking beauty of the gardens made this a perfect way to end my vacation in the romantic city.

 

One of many fountains

Hall of mirrors picture from its wiki page

Cruise on the Siene

Due to a long day in Bordeaux, we had kept the next day light on purpose. We had only two items on our agenda - a visit to Montparnasse Observatory and a cruise on river Siene ending with a visit to Eiffel Tower.

We left the hotel around noon and found absolutely no queue at the observatory. The view of Paris is amazing from this place. It has 59 floors of which the 56th floor and the terrace are open to public. The view covers a radius of 40 km; aircrafts can be seen taking off from Orly airport. 

We took an elevator to 56th floor and spent some time drinking more rose wine at the café cum bar there before we walked up a few flights of stairs to the terrace. It was a very sunny day and almost on the verge of being hot. Hence we couldn't spend much time on the terrace and came back down on 56th floor as the view is beautiful from this height as well.

After that we headed towards a tour agency at rue de Pyramides. Since July is a peak season and I wasn't very organized while planning the vacation, I couldn't procure regular admission tickets or even guided tour tickets to the Eiffel. The only option left was an expensive combination of late evening city tour + cruise on Seine + Visit to Eiffel. This was my first (and hopefully last) experience of boarding a tourist bus with a planned agenda.

We started with the 75 minute long cruise on the Seine. The hot day had given way to a warm evening and it was a pleasurable ride. It was a lovely way of looking at the attractions that we had been to and those that we had skipped. Overall worth the price.

Then we proceeded to climb the Eiffel where I almost fainted at the sight of 2 mile long queue. However we had priority entry as we were with a guide and we went directly to the elevator lobby. These elevators go from ground to Level 1 and Level 2. For Level 3, one has to purchase a separate ticket (at ground floor) and then take a different elevator from Level 2. The elevator took 15 minutes to arrive at the ground floor and we decided to head directly to Level 2 instead of stopping at Level 1 because of the long wait time for the elevator.

As beautiful as it looked from a distance, up close it just felt like a big iron structure - I couldn't feel the beauty of it while standing on it. However I am aware that the Eiffel is an engineering marvel - Towering nearly 320 meters tall, and weighing 10,100 tons, the Eiffel tower stands both as a landmark, recognizable throughout the world as the icon of the city of Paris, and as a monumental example of materials' structure, properties and performance.

I also didn't find the view of Paris from Eiffel as stunning as it was from Montparnasse Tower. But that's probably because we couldn't make it to Level 3 as we hadn't purchased the tickets needed for it and we were in no mood to go down and stand in a long queue and then wait 15 minutes again for elevators. So we decided to head back down which meant almost 20 min of wait this time before the elevator arrived.
 

Once down we decided to skip the evening city tour by bus and headed towards the metro station. On the way, we crossed Seine and went through Jardins (gardens) du Torcadero and Palais de Chaillot (a building that houses couple of museums now). The view of Eiffel from Palais de Chaillot was breathtaking - the puddling iron of Eiffel shined like bronze under the evening rays of the setting sun and Seine flowed in front like a soulful melody. I chose to enjoy the beauty of the Eiffel from this vantage point in stead of losing the moment by taking pictures. Soon the sun set and the temperatures dropped again and we boarded the metro back to the hotel.


View of Eiffel from Montparnasse

View of Paris from Montparnasse

View of Eiffel from river Seine

 

While on cruise on Seine

View from Eiffel Tower

Raising the glass in the wine capital

For wine drinkers like me, a trip to France would have been incomplete withoust visiting Bordeaux. Plus a visit to Bordeaux from Paris would mean a TGV experience, so I had booked us on 6 am train to Bordeaux which at the time of ticket booking felt a totaly acceptable time. However, on the day of the journey I refused to get up early in the morning and even told my friends that if no one else wants to go, I would rather sleep. However, I was in minority so we landed at Gare du Nord by 5:45 am.

The pastry shops had just started to open shutters and the smell of freshly baked croissants and pastries was simply too much to resist. We bought some chocolate puff pastries and boarded the train. It was a comfortable journey and we reached Bordeaux by 9 am. As we stepped out, we realized that we were too late to join any whole day wine tours and in stead bought tickets for a half day Medoc appellation tour that would start in afternoon.

We then had some lovely coffee and breakfast at a cafe near by following which we boarded a tram to the city centre. And after wandering around for some time we parked ourselves in Place des Quinconces - the largest city square in Europe. It was a warm and sunny day - ideal for indulging in some rose wine. 

Sharp at 2 pm, we joined the 6 member wine tour - we were driven in a van by the guide herself. It took us about an hour to reach the vineyards - we started with Chateau Margaux and then proceeded to a smaller vineyard where we spent good part of the day understanding the wine process and ofcourse tasting some wonderful wines. We were escorted around by a stunningly beautiful young woman who was doing a wine course. I am not sure if I listened to anythng what she said - I just couldnt stop gawking at her ;)

My friends and I were all too happy to spend the rest of our afternoon with her but we had two more wine tasting halts on the agenda and then we headed back to the city centre. We grabbed a quick dinner at a restaurant opposite the station and boarded a 7 pm TGV back to Paris.

Even though we were tired (it was 11 pm by the time we reached hotel), we stopped by at a restaurant near the hotel to end the day on a sweet note aka Crème Brulee - perfect way to end a perfect day!

At Gare Du Nord

 

 

Largest city square in Europe

Chateau Margaux

Vineyard where we met the Stunning Beauty!

Another wine tasting halt

Musée d'Orsay & Notre-Dame

Day 3 started with visit to Orsay Museum - for me the highlight of this museum is the Impressionist era paintings and the icing on the cake was a temporary exhibit of Van Gogh.

I was planning to visit Amesterdam after Paris but work schedule made me cancel the Thalys tickets that I had booked. So I was bummed about not being able to visit the Van Gogh museum. But I got lucky as Orsay had a temp exhibit when we were in Paris.

So naturally we started with the exhibit first. The queue to enter museum wasn't too long but was moving pretty slowly and it was drizzling a bit...by the time we reached the exhibit I was disheartened to find another long and slow moving queue. I decided to sit on the floor instead of giving up and after about 30 minutes we were able to enter the exhibition.

The exhibit had about forty paintings, plus a selection of his drawings and letters. Its title (and point of view) come from a book by Antonin Artaud, Van Gogh, the Man Suicided by Society, written from the painter’s Paris retrospective in 1947. This was my first time looking at the original Van Gogh paintings up close and I would say that one has to see the real thing in order to truly "feel" his work.

After spending 1.5 hours admiring and experiencing this fine collection, we directly proceeded to 5th floor which is completely dedicated to Impressionist era paintings by Monet, Manet, Renoir, Sisley, Bazille, Boudin, Cezzane, Degas and many more...I, personally, love the impressionist art and was happy spending  2 plus hours on this floor alone.

We then walked towards Notre Dame and en route found a bench on one of the many bridges on Seine that felt like it was calling us :) we decided to park ourselves there. The morning clouds had given way to a warm and sunny afternoon and the idyllic surroundings beckoned us to just sit down and observe the world go by. We must have spent good portion of an hour here before we got back on our feet and reached Notre Dame.

The queue to enter the cathedral was quite long but moved fairly quickly. After the cathedral, as we looked at the queue for the towers, we gave up - Not only was it long, it wasn't moving at all. The three long queues had done us in finally (museum entry, exhibit entry and cathedral entry) - we sat down at a small café near by and decided to indulge in some rose wine and crepes.

The evening started to get cold and as the tiny rain drops threatened to transform into a shower, we made our way back to subway station and headed back to hotel where we changed into some finer dinner clothes and went to a near by restaurant for another evening of good food and great wine!



Musee d' Orsay

A stained glass window @ Notre-Dame

The bridge where we spent an hour doing nothing!

 

Musée du Louvre

Day 2 was reserved for Louvre which, in hindsight, simply wasn't enough to even glance at everything on display there. After a sumptuous breakfast at the hotel, we took subway to the museum. Having bought tickets online, we joined the admissions queue which moved surprisingly fast and within 10 minutes we were inside the palace.

There are three entrances to the Louvre. Though the most famous is the Pyramid and Galerie du Carrousel entrances, lines are a bit shorter at the Passage Richelieu or Porte des Lions entrances. Its is open every day expect Tuesday and some holidays - so please keep that in mind when planning your visit

Once inside we realized how big it was and how many different options we had if we wanted to optimize the one day we had planned for it. My advice - visit the online site and get information about exhibits (permanent and temporary) and plan what all would you want to see in one day. After all its simply impossible to see 40,000 works of art in one day!

We bought a 2 day pass that allows multiple entries to the museums (booking.parisinfo.com) - I would recommend the same as you can step out, grab a lunch and get back inside the museum without paying for the ticket again. The pass gives access, to 60 museums and monuments, as many times as you wish, in and around Paris. There are 2, 4 and 6 days passes to suit your plans (ranging from 42 to 69 Euros) I would highly recommend the 4 day pass if you plan to stay 4 days in Paris (including one day at Versailles) as it covers almost all major museums and monuments including Louvre, Orsay, Notre Dame, Arc De Triomphe, Chateau de Versailles. Separately, cost of admission to these places is much more. The museum pass can be delivered to your hotel or you can collect it from their office to save on postage.

There is no way I can do justice to the beautiful works that we saw and experienced in Louvre, so I will refrain from talking about it. I honestly didn't take many pictures either, so absorbed was I in the beauties that surrounded me. All I can say is that Louvre has spoiled me for all the other museums in the world. No other museum, that I have seen, comes even close to what Louvre has to offer.

Would like to mention though that Monalisa felt like a let down - A small painting with throngs of people around it - I could barely see it :)

Next time I would keep at least 2 days for Louvre - just hoping that next time happens soon :)

 

First French Connection

While working for companies based in US, I had transited through Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London and Paris many times but had never managed to experience Europe. So in 2014, I decided it was time for me to treat myself to a vacation in Paris.

I honestly didn't plan the vacation too well considering I was going to be there in the peak season (first week of July). This inspite of a similar experience in London where I couldn't get any tickets to any attraction when I was there for a conference in 2013. I did, however, manage to salvage the situation but I also learnt my lesson that ensured better planning for the Italy vacation in 2015. 

As always, the hotel I chose was closer to key attractions like Arc de Triomphe and just 500 metres from Champs de Élysées. Plus the metro stop was just a few hundred meters away. The location couldn't have been better. And the rooms were surprisingly big for a hotel in Paris city centre. 

We all met at CDG around 10 am - some from India and some from US and reached the hotel around 11 am. After freshening up, we headed out to Champs de Élysées for a lunch. It was sunny and warm so I wore a summer dress. 

We chose a restaurant at random where we had rose wine and amazing beef bourguignon. While we were half way through our meal, the weather suddenly changed on us. It started drizzling and temperatures dropped significantly. I wasn't properly attired to continue our walk post lunch so we headed back to the hotel. I was half frozen by the time we got back :)

Since US folks were feeling jet lagged we all decided to rest for a while before  stepping out again in the early evening. This time I dressed more sensibly in denim and even purchased a leather jacket from Zara because the weather was still cold! After a long evening of strolling around, we had some wine and a great dinner at another restaurant on Champs de Élysées and we retired by 9:30 pm. 



Lunch at Champs de Elysees