Robot Claw

I’m leaving for the airport soon. It’s been a long trip, but it’s now time to return home. 

I sent many postcards from Ireland, England and France. Did you get one yet?

We visited Versailles today, about 45 minutes by train southwest of Paris. The town is famous for its Palace, which housed the French royalty for hundreds of years and is now a major museum. 

I had read that The Louvre, which I visited yesterday, has the longest lines of any museum in the world. I can attest to the fact that they were massive, but the crowding at Versailles today was much worse! It took us about an hour in line before we could even enter! 

The royal apartments were beautiful, but look at those crowds! Here’s another idea of the sea of humanity we were stuck in as we walked through the palace interior: 

Yes it was as unpleasant at it seems, but I’m not sure how the museum could do a better job of managing the experience for all (save limiting tour group access). Here’s the famous Hall of Mirrors: 

Thankfully the museum is more than just the palace, having extensive gardens and a separate estate that was once the home of Marie Antoinette. Most of our time at the museum was spent at these. 

The gardens contain many artificial groves, each hiding fountains or statues. It would take more than one trip to fully explore these – so large are the gardens – and it’s quite romantic imagining what they must have been like when they were owned by kings. 

Mum and daughter! Both were very tired when this was taken. Like for me, travel exhaustion has set in 🙂 

Marie Antoinettes home was much smaller and simpler than the main palace, but it was also much more charming and seemed more like somewhere one could actually live. It also had its own separate and beautiful gardens: 

While the main palace was just too full of tourists, I loved the gardens, the other home and the ham roll I bought for lunch… 

I therefore proclaim ‘Operation Even the Greatest Stars’ a complete success 😉

I visited The Louvre yesterday, while Sue and Riley headed off to a historic church and some shopping. The Louvre is the world’s largest and most visited museum, and from the lines yesterday I’m not surprised! 

That photo shows a tiny portion of the building and the famous glass pyramid which is over the main entrance. The museum has five floors and over 650,000 square feet of displays. I was there about 4 hours, and probably saw only a sixth of what is on display. 

The building itself is marvelous! Opened over 200 years ago, many of its halls are lavishly decorated themselves including sculptural elements and intricate painting on walls and ceilings. 

So of course The Louvre is world famous for one particular painting it has on display: The Mona Lisa. I arrived at opening and shuffled over to see it (which is a healthy distance from the entrance) so as to beat the crowds: 

What you don’t see are the dozens of other people jostling and beating people with their selfie sticks to get close enough for an unimpeded shot 🙂

Incidentally I’m getting a bit of a cold, probably due to exhaustion after such a strenuous trip. Even though I gave it my biggest smile above, I was really dragging myself along yesterday! 

That’s Aphrodite, or ‘Venus di Milo’, another extremely famous work on display in the museum. 

Those are photos of the Napoleonic apartments, which have been preserved in the museum. There are also dozens and dozens of rooms displaying the day-to-day items of the French nobility from 200 years ago. This section of the museum alone is bigger than most other museums. 

As I said earlier, I was feeling exhausted and only stayed for about four hours. I enjoyed the museum, but the crowds were frustrating and it became overwhelming once the they began to swell around noon. I returned to the hotel for a much needed nap! 

Later in the evening we reunited for a river cruise and then a quick trip back to the tower for some night shots. It’s very pretty with the lights on 🙂

Today’s our last full day here in Paris and we’re visiting Versailles palace. Here’s hoping I don’t collapse from exhaustion!

Paris Disney consists of two parks: Disneyland Parc and Walt Disney Studios. Yesterday we purchased combined tickets for both and spent a little over 12 hours visiting them. 

As with the other Disney parks I have visited (7 in total now) these are places where it’s virtually impossible not to have fun. Aside from the rides themselves, the landscaping and design of the parks is almost enough to keep you entertained. 

We ride virtually every available ride – some twice – in both parks, but skipped the shows. It would be impossible to do and see everything in a single day. 

Highlights included Tower of Terror (more or less identical to the Florida one), ‘Le Phantom Manor’ (ie. the Haunted Mansion, which was a bit different compared to Florida and Tokyo) and Pirates Of The Carribean (again, slightly different). 

Oh and this guys iron-on shirt was a highlight as well: 

Their version of Tomorrowland (called Adventureland) was amazingly designed with a strong Jules Verne motif as shown in the photo above, but almost all of it was closed. I suppose they are renovating. This was a shame since this park has the new Space Mountain that I was looking forward to ride. We did the no-line-at-all old version of Star Tours instead: 

As we were leaving we walked past the castle and into a cavern underneath that housed an enormous and wonderful animatronic dragon. His head moved about and growled and snarled and he kept taking his claw on the ground. It was extremely well done and a highlight of the park for me. 

At the end of the day we were completely exhausted but we’d all had a load of fun. These parks are just as good as the ones in Florida and Tokyo and easily worth a visit if you’re ever in this part of the world.