Understandably, it was a bit of a later-than-normal start to the day today, with Kim having flown for just over 24 hours and arriving only last night, and fairly late at that, particularly by the time we got back to the apartment.
The city of Paris is divided into twenty arrondissements municipaux , administrative districts, more simply referred to as arrondissements. The number of the arrondissement is indicated by the last two digits in most Parisian postal codes (75001 up to 75020).
With the apartment being in the 1st arrondissement (or city region, with the lower numbers being in the centre, and higher numbers outer), we are slap-bang in the middle of the city. We have a Metro (subway) station about 100m from the apartment front door one way, and about 250m the other way is an RER (suburban rail system) station. The Louvre Museum is about 10 minutes walk to the west, while about the same distance but to the south is Notre Dame. Naturally, the area around the apartment is exactly what you would expect, with cobblestoned streets (which are actually pedestrian areas outside the building), restaurants, cafes and bistros abounding, and French being spoken everywhere; here are some views out of our windows (we are on the first floor of the building, but with double-glazing, it's surprisingly quiet inside): |
The Château de Versailles or Palace of Versailles or simply Versailles was the centre of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved there from Paris (into what had originally been a hunting lodge), until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789 after the beginning of the French Revolution .
When the château was built, Versailles was a country village; today, however, it is a wealthy suburb of Paris , some 20 kilometres southwest of the French capital.Versailles is famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy (in other words the monarch makes all decisions, and their decisions are final) of the Ancien Régime . In my view, it is a symbol of rampant egotism, and the ideals of class bigotry; to be honest, I'm not surprised that there was a revolution. However, it soon becomes obvious (if it wasn't before) that the replacement of one family of royals with another of emperors through vicious rebellion is not really moving ahead - even if it might seem like it to some. |
However, our visit started with lengthy lines; due to our late start, and the hour or so to get there (including walking to the RER station, catching a train to the next station, changing to the line to Versailles, and walking from the station to the palace), we arrived at just after 10am. The entry line snaked across the palace courtyard a number of times - the line was very long. We joined the end of the line, and then found an official to check that we were in the right line; it turned out we were in the right line for entry if we had a ticket - which, of course, we didn't. So, we decided to split up (with today being the first time I would have that opportunity); Kim stayed in the entry line, while I headed to the ticket-purchase line.
I didn't get as much out of this visit as I did to some of the other palaces I've been to - probably because of the long lines, the crowds inside, and the limited information in the rooms (obviously, you are expected to take the audio-guide - which is included in the entry cost). However, no trip to Paris would be totally complete without seeing this hunting lodge (as it started out as) on steroids!
The station we would swap train-lines at was St Michel - Notre Dame, so we decided to head up and see what the weather was doing; it had stopped raining, but the skies were still ominous. We headed across the river Seine to check out Notre Dame and see what the lines were like there - they were also long! But that's OK, because we have planned to see inside another day; we were just using this as an opportunity to get our bearings, and find out about opening hours, etc.
So we headed off for a stroll along the Seine - lined with wonderful trees and bustling with life: some tourist and some local; along the way, we were treated to a view of the Eiffel Tower, looming up through the low cloud and mist of the rains.
The very nice young gentleman told us that we could buy them on-line, but as we don't have access to a printer, we could either find a SNAF shop, which sell various tickets to theatre shows, etc, and the Louvre, or downstairs at the shopping hall just next to the Louvre (across the roundabout from the entrance, with entry next to the triumphal arch, by one of the statues on either side) at a Tabac (tobacconist shop) that also sells Museum Passes - we opted for this.
There was a short line at the tobacconist, which seemed to sell very little tobacco products, but a lot of museum passes! We were probably in line for about 20 minutes, and got the tickets to use at our leisure.
With the day drawing to a close, we walked back to the apartment, which was only about 15 minutes away, along pleasant Paris streets, where once again we were both struck by how liveable European cities are, with human-scale (Kim's words) architecture, and bubbling street life. Along the way, we came across some typically French signs at various Metro stations: