Day 17- Part 1... A Mad Dash in Paris...

Today was our final full day of sightseeing and our last day with the group. In the same spirit as the rest of the trip... it would be a BUSY day!

After breakfast we piled onto the bus and took a driving sightseeing tour of Paris.

I loved all the little cafes and markets.

 After hearing a lot about this amazing city and seeing some of the amazing architecture, we stopped at one of the most famous landmarks... Notre Dame. After spending some time walking around and taking pictures, we re-grouped and went inside.

It is really an amazing place with such detail in the architecture and absolutely beautiful stained glass windows.

After a good amount of time at Notre Dame, we got back on the bus and drove around the city some more. Even though we had been up the Eiffel Tower the day before, we stopped at a place that had a great view of the tower and was a perfect spot for pictures...

We drove by the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs-Elysees.

We also drive through the tunnel that is sadly the site of Princess Diana's fatal car crash.

 

After a quick bite to eat, we met up with a smaller group to go on the optional tour that afternoon... a trip to the Palace of Versailles. I had been looking forward to this simply because I had heard was an amazing sight to see. From the moment we drove into the parking lot and saw the front gates, I knew it wouldn't disappoint.

 

It was a LONG walk to the front entrance of the palace.

The amount of wealth invested into this palace is overwhelming. Even the gates at the entrance were covered in gold!

Versailles became the political center of France with Louis XIV moved there in 1682. It remained that way until the French Revolution forced the royal family back to Paris in 1789. The palace is made of endless rooms and long halls of tapestries, paintings, chandeliers, elaborate furnishing and sheer affluence.

View of the gardens.

The King's bed.

View of some of the gardens from inside the palace.

After our guided tour we went out into the gardens and we were given free time. And then we made a great mistake... we saw a sign for a small train that went through the vast area of the palace grounds and provided commentary on rented headsets. Since we only had about an hour until our tour group departed, we thought it would be a good way to see the most of the area in our short time. We couldn't have been more wrong... the train ended up really only being a means to get from point A to point B and we didn't really see much. And it lasted over an hour... yep, OVER an hour.

Another couple from our tour group had also gotten on the train and we started chatting about how we doubted our decision. By the time we really began to realize that we were going to be late, the train had taken us so far from the main palace, that it would have taken us FOREVER to walk (or run) back. We had no choice than to keep riding and it felt like it took forever!! Each time the train would reach one of its stops, people would unload, the Conductor would take tickets from new passengers and wait a few minutes in case new ones showed up. It was the most frustrating waste of time.

When we FINALLY got back to our original stop, Brad went to return the headset while I started the LONG walk back to the bus meeting stop. The other couple ran ahead of me... I was still battling very swollen feet and most of the ground was very uneven cobblestone. That combination meant I couldn't run at all. All the while I was quickly running back to the bus, I worried if there would even be a bus there to meet... after all we were now 20 minutes past the time the bus was supposed to LEAVE!! I went as fast as I could. Somehow Brad and I missed each other and he managed to beat me there... thankfully the bus was still there. We were greeted by a very unhappy tour guide and Franco and then a bus full of fellow tourists that had been forced to sit and wait for us. We were not the most liked people on the bus. I am convinces that had it just been Brad and me and not also another couple, we would have been left there. We tried to explain ourselves and say that it wasn't our fault... I am not sure anyone cared. Especially the not-so-nice French tour guide. She basically said that SHE knew that we didn't have time to take that train and if we did have time she would have told us it was an option... not sure I understand her logic. Maybe she should have told everyone that there was a train and that we DIDN'T have time to ride it!! UGH.

We spent the 20 minute ride back to Paris trying to catch our breath and calm down some. We made it back into the city to where the rest of the group was waiting. They were also very unhappy because they had been made to wait in the sun for 20 minutes since "someone" made the bus leave late. Oops.