Queen For A Day

Marie Antoinette had a rough life (especially with that whole beheading thing) – and a bit undeserved at that. While I wouldn’t want to swap lives with her, I would definitely love to trade her homes (and not the palace – France can keep that – I just want her hamlet). Today we explored Versailles – home to France’s historic royalty, and most notably, home to King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. While strolling through the gardens and Marie’s hamlet (we’re on a first name basis now), it was easy to remove myself from the 21st century and pretend to be queen for a day (which won’t come as any surprise to my friends and family). While neither Sean nor I found the gardens particularly amazing after seeing Boboli Gardens in Florence, they were phenomenal considering they were part of a personal residence (albeit probably maintained by a huge staff). We started in the gardens because the security lines to get into the palace were ridiculous – they wound all around the entire courtyard and not even our "cut to the front of the line" museum pass could help with that. Very few people had the same idea, so we had the gardens almost to ourselves. Sundays are the Musical Fountain Shows at Versailles, so the fountains were in full-gear and music was playing softly over the sound system. It was easy to get drawn in and forget about the outside world.

After a few hours of exploration, Sean and I decided to break for lunch. There is a small restaurant tucked into the center of the gardens where we paid a ridiculous amount of money for a mediocre lunch, but the convenience and the location were worth it. The trek between the gardens and the Grand Trianon and Marie Antoinette’s hamlet is a 20 to 30 minute walk, so we headed that way in order to get there for the noon opening. Grand Trianon was built as a recreational residence for the royal families – a hunting lodge and summer home all in one. The rooms are still furnished and decorated as they had been back then, making for a very fun and historic look into that time period. I would be happy to accept Grand Trianon as a summer home should the offer ever be made – it is pretty swanky. That said, my favorite part of our afternoon was spent strolling through Marie Antoinette’s hamlet. The hamlet is a lot less manicured – no English gardens, sculptures or landscaped hedges. Instead, these things are all replaced with trees, shrubs, and meadow grasses, as well as the birds and butterflies that make their home there. Not far from the hamlet is a small farm that still has animals for the tourists to see (whether it is still a working farm or just there for visitor’s sake is unknown to me). The entire area was very homey and I never wanted to leave – though Sean eventually made me.

By this time the line out front had dwindled down to a reasonable length, so we proceeded towards the palace. After all the charm found in the gardens and the hamlet, I found the palace uninteresting in comparison. While it was very ornate and the architecture and ceilings are quite beautiful (the Europeans must have spent a lot of time looking up back in the day – the ceilings everywhere are unreal), I was expecting the rooms inside the palace to be like those in Grand Trianon – still set up with original furnishings. Instead, it is more of a museum and no one could ever get through all of the information provided in one visit. It was so crowded inside that Sean and I could do little more than glance at a few things in one room before the crowds pushed us onto the next. I’m not sure I’ve ever been in a space that crowded, even in Pike Place.

After leaving Versailles, Sean and I decided to try the restaurant next door to our hotel, which had gotten rave reviews on Trip Advisor. The staff was incredibly friendly and had their menus written on chalkboards, which they brought to our table for our review (provided in English). Our waiter also brought us two free glasses of wine, though we still have no idea why. Sean and I decided to split each course (as we’ve been doing in most places so we can try more things), and for our first course we started with scallops in a puff pastry. After my first bite, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Both Sean and I gobbled it up, then proceeded to sop up all the remaining cream sauce with the bread that had been brought to our table. For our entrée we split a beef sirloin served with French fries and pepper sauce. I wasn’t crazy about the pepper sauce (too spicy for me), but Sean liked it and the steak was cooked perfectly medium rare, the only way I’ll eat it. I am really picky about my steaks, but this dish was a home run. Because we take desserts very seriously, we both had our own – an icecream sundae for Sean and a crème brulee for me, as well as another glass of wine for both of us. Overall the meal was a huge hit, and we are already making plans to return before we depart for Villefranche.

Tomorrow is another full day since we have much to cram into what feels like a relatively short time in Paris (considering the size of the city), so it's time for bed for me!