Versailles with Bikes and Jet Lag

Part of the king's bedroom inside the chateau of Versailles.

Heather and Terri on their bikes.

Picnic by the grand canal with our lovely "rain bags."

The girls in front of Versailles. Our apartment doesn't quite look like this, but we are still happy here!

The historic Hall of Mirrors inside the chateau. (Steve has more pictures on his camera. We'll try to download those tonight).

I have been thoroughly chastised by Morgan for making my last entry soooo long. I think we have different impressions of who may actually be reading this blog. I am under the impression that the two or three interested family members may skim through some of the info just to assure that we are alive and well. I also view it as a way to journal our experiences in some detail so that we can look back at it some time and relive some of our experiences again. Because my girls are so much better connected on Facebook, some of their friends may actually be checking the blog out from time to time as well. For the benefit of those who do not like my long –winded explanations for my future self, I will do a bullet point list of the things that we actually did, and then you can skip down (or up) to the pictures. I must motivate someone else in my family to do the actual downloading and posting of the pictures because if any of you know me and my photographic ability, you know you will not see the pictures unless they are done by someone else!

Friday , July 23 – it was a perfect day for a trip to Versailles. This is one of the few activities I had planned out and reserved before we left the United States. We did a bike tour of Versailles with Fat Tire Bike Tour. So here are the bullet points:

· Left the apartment at 8 AM for a 9 AM arrival to the other side of Paris. This included our first Metro ride (went without a hitch) and trying to find a side street not listed on any of the maps I have. We did it with 5 minutes to spare. Always a great sense of accomplishment in navigating a new (and foreign) city.

· Meet the bike tour office and realize that this will be a totally American day. Everyone working in the office was somewhere between the ages of 18 and 30 and all appeared to be American college students working for the summer in Paris. There were no attempts to even try anything in French and everything was done in English in a very American manner – we were already having fun because as loud (and sometimes obnoxious) as Americans can be, we know how to have fun and get things done.

· Ride bikes to the RER train station (through the BUSY streets of Paris) with a group of 20 riders who were not quite up to Tour de France peleton riding. Manhandle bikes up, over and onto a train.

· Ride train to Versailles and once again made our way as a mediocre peleton through the streets of Versailles to the town market.

· The town market was AWESOME and we shopped for food to make a picnic lunch. We bought beautiful baguettes and some quiche, cherries (almost as good as Washington fruit), a hunk of Comte cheese, 2 bottles of fresh apple juice, 2 lovely meringues and even some mousse de canard (duck mousse). There was a crepe stand near the bike staging area of the market and everyone got their first crepe as well. We have been delighted to find that Nutella is a staple at every creperie and you can mix it with many other yummy ingredients – like bananas and whipped cream in this instance.

· Ride bikes on the public grounds of Versailles. We circled the outside of the grounds viewing the Domaine de Marie Antoinette from the outside as well as the Petite and Grande Trianaon. Our guide proved proficient at not only handling amateurs on bikes but gave short but informative information about the chateau, the grounds and the town of Versailles.

· The weather began to look very threatening and we even heard a lot of thunder. Most of our group broke out the cheap plastic rain ponchos we had purchased for a Euro and put them on to keep off the few raindrops that were falling and keep us a bit warmer from the wind.

· We rode around the Grand Canal and got to sit under some of the perfectly groomed (and large) trees that line the canal. We ate our picnic lunch without getting at all wet. Heather had an experience with a swan who thought after being offered a bit of bread would just grab it out of her hand along with her thumb the next time. Kara watched the whole encounter and thought it was very funny. There is more to come on Heather and her bird experiences. We have decided she has a special affinity for the birds of our vacation areas – just ask her about the close encounter she had in Africa.

· The lunch was YUMMY and then we rode to the entrance of the chateau and left the bikes with Andrew (our guide) while we spent about 1 ½ hours inside the palace.

· I have been to Versailles 3 or 4 times, but realized that I had never been there during the summer with all the other tourists. I very much recommend the off season! The palace was very crowded. Normally that is not too much of an issue but at this point Heather was feeling very badly. As a side note, our original travel plans included a couple of nights in our apartment before our bike adventure as well as a day to unpack, relax, sleep some more, etc. As it turned out because of delays, we spent 2 nights on a plane, got here on Thursday afternoon and had to show up for the bike tour the next morning. Heather did not sleep at all on Thursday night – her body was not willing to make the change in time regardless of how tired she was. We entered the chateau about 3 in the afternoon and Heather was really fading at this point, then with the heat and crowds in the building, she was feeling very badly. She managed to make it through and even ooh and aah at the kings and queens apartments, the hall of mirrors and the beauty of the gardens outside but she didn’t enjoy it too much.

· The palace is impressive even with no sleep, a chic plastic rain coat and jet lag. More pictures to come (sometime anyway!).

· We rode the bikes back to the train station and once again, rode, carried and pushed the bikes onto the train. There was a bit of panic at this point because we (as a family) had gotten separated within the group and my attention was focused on making sure Heather at least stayed upright on the bike. Morgan, Steve, Heather and I ended up being together but we didn’t know where Kara was. We asked Andrew, our guide, where she was assuming he had organized her into one of the small groups necessarily spread throughout the train. He said that he had not seen her. Thus began a frantic search up and down the train by Andrew, Steve and I. Everyone thought (including Andrew) that the very first train car had been checked. So Steve and I started checking all the other cars without a sign of her. Panic was now starting to set in and Andrew was trying to get everyone off the train at this point when I ran up to the first car in desperation and of course there she was chatting with other group members having done what she had been told. Mad dash down the length of the train getting al the bikes back on before the train pulled out. That was another huge “whew!!!”

· We all made it back to Paris, more riding through the Paris streets and back to the starting point.

· It was a very fun day and we got to see a lot of Versailles that I had never seen. The guides were fun and we even had to buy a t-shirt of two of “Fat Tire Bike Paris.” Et voila.

· We managed to make it home and eat a few tuna fish sandwhiches before bed (we’ll be here for a month – not every night can be boeuf bourguignon!). The girls finally fell into bed but were afraid of not sleeping so being the caring parents we are, we gave each of them a half sleeping pill to try and help them make the shift to our new time reality.

· Onto another day…

I have totally failed even at the bullet points. My apologies, but just know that I am getting my journal done while you are slogging through the details! (Morgan is continuing to chastise me as we speak, Kara says she is just tired!)