Palace of Versailles
Post date: 03-Sep-2009 09:04:09
On Sunday, August 30, 2009, we battled the locals and the tourists and headed to the Palace of Versailles. It wasn't too crowded except for the bathrooms on the grounds. There are not enough bathrooms for the magnitude of people who visit the grounds. The bathrooms near the Palace always had a least 50 people in line at all times. We tried the garden bathrooms which had about 25 people in line. It was a 30 minute queue before I could use the bathroom. There was only one stall! I was tempted to got pee on the wall (such a sanitary urinal) like the men had to do in their bathroom. If you visit, ensure that you do not drink anything so you don't have to use the bathroom. If you do have to go, go outside the palace to the public bathroom in the park. It's cleaner and there was no queue.
It cost us each $13.50 to get into the Palace and we enjoyed admiring the interior decorating in the castle. The rooms are so gaudily decorated that it was hard to follow the objects that are 3D in the monotonous matching colour scheme. For example, if King Louis XV did not have these feather sticking out of his bed then you wouldn't even be able to tell there is a bed in this room. The rich red and gold bed spread and be curtains exactly match the carpet, the window curtains, chairs and the wall paper too. King Louis XV died in this bed on Sept 01, 1715.
The gardens are very pretty, but we paid 8 euro each to see the musical gardens and I was rather disappointed. I thought the fountain would dance to the music or there would be an orchestra playing music or something, but the "musical gardens" was really just music playing while you were in the gardens. Instead of paying to see the gardens, I recommend walking around the building to get to the public and free part of the gardens. Colin and I tried to find two geocaches in the public part of the garden, but I think the coordinates were really off because we couldn't find a geocache. However, we went for a nice romantic 4 km walk in the countryside and then through part of the town of Versailles.
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