Summer Holiday Part 8

It was with great sadness that we left Avranches the next morning, because we really loved it there. Also, we had to get early in the morning as we had a long drive ahead of us. Fortunately, the weather was good and the anticipation of reaching Paris kept us motivated. We had decided not to drive directly in to Paris, partly to avoid the ridiculous Parisian traffic, partly to see the palace in Versailles. When we arrived at the palace, we were greeted with a massive queue of people that snaked from the entrance and doubled back on itself three of four times through the courtyard. We decided to wait, and it was only about an hour and was probably a good warm-up for all the queuing that was about to be done in Paris.

The palace, which was home to the French royal family up until the French Revolution, was overwhelmingly extravagant. Every surface was gold plated, every wall lined with commission painting and red velvet, every ceiling painted with some magnificent scene. It was easy to see how in the 18th century the worker population might have begun to think malicious thoughts towards those in power.

The gardens were stunning as well, with beautifully manicured hedges and lines of shaped trees surrounding flower-filled garden beds. We really would have liked to see more of the gardens, but a sudden and heavy downpour brought our visit to a quick stop. When it started raining, everyone ran to the nearest shelter, which also happened to be the meeting place we had decided on when we split up to explore the gardens, so it took us a few minutes to get the group back together.

Then it was off to the car rental place to drop off our faithful Zafira. That 5 minutes drive was one of the scariest of the whole trip- the traffic, while slightly less hectic than in Paris, was still a completely different experience than driving in Australia. Fortunately, and despite the best efforts of the horse-mounted policeman who almost blindly walked out in front of us, we made it safely and dropped of our car without a scratch. From then on, it was all down to public transport.

We caught the train into Paris, and after a short taxi ride we were at our accommodation- a fully equipped, spacious (by Parisian standards) apartment in the 1st arrondissement, with the louvre 5 minutes in one direction and the opera house 5 minutes in the other.

By the time we had settled in it was about 7pm, and to our surprise found that the Louvre was open late that night, so we wandered over and spent an hour or two looking through the famous gallery. Fortunately not many people seemed to know it was open late, and we had no queue to get in, and despite the horror stories told by the majority of tourists, there was no wait to see the Mona Lisa. However, this just meant we were disappointed at its small size sooner rather than later.

On the way to the Louvre, the clouds were dark and threatening, but they cleared to give one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen as we left to walk home.

Dinner was had at an Asian restaurant right next to our apartment. The food was good but the portions were small, however the convenience was worth it for us weary travelers- it was literally 5 seconds from leaving our building to getting to the restaurant.