Last Day

I can't believe I'm actually in my last full day in Paris. I'll tell you what, time sure passes by fast.

I forgot to mention that the day before yesterday we went to the Holocaust Memorial on the island that Notre Dame is on, and it is actuallylocated right behind the cathedral. It's designed so that you get the crampness and stuffiness of a concentration camp. You walk down these cement stairs into an area where you're completely surrounded by really high cement walls. All you can see now is the sky and a little water, but there's a spiky fence in front of it. There's a tight narrow entranceway into this cave. You enter. Inside there is a tomb of the unknown deportee, for those who were unknown and deported during this time. There's a long corridor with 200,000 crystals, each representing the 200,000 French that were deported. At the end of the corridor there is the light of eternal hope. On either side, there were tiny enclosures which represented the cells they would have been kept in. Along the walls, etched in red and looked like scratchmarks of blood, were quotes. Above the door before you left was "Forgive, but never forget," which is above every exit at the concentration camps now. This was such a different memorial than anything I've seen before, but it was so meaningful and deep. It really hits you hard.

Yesterday, we travelled over to the Chateau Versailles. You can apparently get a pass at the metro that covers round trip metro fare, the ticket inside so you can skip the lines, and free audio guides. It was a good buy because we missed the huge lines and because it was cheaper.

So, we arrived at the huge Palace of Versailles. Louis XIV built this palace for himself and it is lai out East to West so that he can see the sun rise and set. The decorating was pretty similar to the palaces in St. Petersburg in regards to the gold carvings around the framing, murals on the ceiling, large paintings on the walls. However, most of Louis's paintings were that of the family and not so much other things. Except for the hall of battles, which had a picture for each battle fought during French history and Napoleon kept it up when he was emperor.

We saw the King's bedroom which was attached to the Hall of Mirrors, which was amazing to stand in. There are 17 windows and with each window is a mirror corresponding to it directly across from it. There were three rows of chandeliers. Candellabras with gold statues of woman or babies holding them up all along the corridor. This corridor looked onto the main gardens, as well. It housed parties, balls, special events. The Hall of Mirrors was where the Treaty of Versailles was signed. Beautiful.

We went out into the gardens which was HUGE! There was a fountain when you first came outside (none of the fountains were on, though, while we were there. And actually, most of the 1500 fountains (only 300 still remain) never turned on except for when the king was passing them), and the symmetrical tree lines, shaped shrubbery, and flowers. At the end of the fountain was a grand staircase that led into the garden. To the right and left were symmetrical with the shrubbery, flowers, and Roman statues lining the side walkways. You continued forward until you'd hit a long area of grass. At the base of the grass was the grand canal, which was shaped as a cross and was one mile long one way. (In Louis's time, he would have gondoliers row him in gondolas on this canal.) To either side were a few of the "maze" type decorations of trees where the trees/bushes are so high you can't see anything else, and if you didn't have a map, you'd probably get lost. In the center of these were other fountains.

We continued down because on the right side of the gardens (a half an hour walk through the gardens - it's massive) was more of the palace - additions. We arrived at the Grand Trianon which is the smaller palace that Louis built for himself so that he could retreat from the Palace for a while. It overlooked a grand meadow and they changed the flowers everyday so that he could get a different floral smell and view. Continuing down this road, you hit the Petit Tieranon. This is Marie Antoinette's little estate area. She wanted the simple life of a peasant, so Louis XVI sacrificed part of his gardens for her. There was a love temple, a French Pavilion, Theatre (where and her friends would put on plays), Grotto (where she supposedly took her lovers, but that's just a legend), and here little village called the Queen's Hamlet.

The Queen's Hamlet was my favorite part and was seriously like walking into a storybook fairytale. There was a farm, with pigs, donkeys, cows, goats, and horses. There was a little cottage, which looked like it could belong to Snow White and the seven dwarfs. She would have the cows milked here, and serve over in her Refreshment Dairy house, a two minute walk away. Two minutes away was her little village which overlooked a little man made lake called the Grand Lac. There was a tower called the Marlborough Tower. Down a little more was a building and on the left side was the billiard room, and on the right was the Queen's House. Behind it was a little garden of flowers and a Warming House. Next to the Queen's House was the Boudoir or kitchen. Next to that was the mill. To leave, you have to cross over this little bridge over a little canal (you had to cross a different one to enter on the other side, but you can enter or exit from either side). Looking back at it from the other side of the lake, it looks like something built for Disneyworld because of how storybook it looks and feels, but she actually lived out here. She wanted to escape the pressures of the palace and the etiquette involved. I don't know how else you can feel farther away from that with your own storytale village, and yet only maybe a half an hour walk to the palace, because I felt like I was in a foreign palace and that the Grand Palace was so far away and a different country in itself. All in all, mad props to you Marie Antoinette, you're place was beautiful and humble. It makes you wonder what kinds of people these royalty were because what kind of queen wants to hang out by a farm and live like a peasant. The way it was set up kind of made me think her personality was more like Cinderella from Disney's version, but I could obviously be way off because I don't know much about Marie Antoinette.

Versailles was incredible and I can't wait to get some books and read more about its history when I get back. Who ever thought that I would be excited and looking forward to reading a history book? History is not my subject, but it's all good.

On our way out, the entrance area was blocked off because a private party was entering, so we walked around and were watching some people walk in, all very rich people. They were entering inbetween men dressed in old war uniforms and the white wigs playing the snare drums and trumpets. There was this one woman in a gold pantsuit that I swear had to have been a designer, she looked like a diva. ha ha. We had fun guessing in the husband and wife situations, who's the one that makes the money, who's happy in their relationship, etc. It was kind of entertaining and blatantly obvious because one would have their head up higher or be more confident.

We got back and went to a little chinese restaurant. Not as good as the other place, but still really good. Then we just kind of chilled and went to bed because it was around midnight.

Today we're going to see a few of the things we haven't seen around Paris yet and walk around and shop a little more.

I'll be home in Michigan tomorrow! Have a great day!