The Honeymoon Tour: Paris - Day Four

On our last full day in Paris we decided to join the over 4 million people who will visit the Chateau Versailles this year. 

In case you don't know what Versailles is, it's a royal chateau in Versailles, which is located in the Île-de-France region of the country, about 10 miles from Paris. It was built by Louis XIII in 1624 as a hunting lodge and was the official residence of the Kings of France between 1682 and 1790. It eventually became the behemoth guilded palace it is today. You probably are familiar with it...so I'll stop there with the history lesson. Versailles is super simple to get to from Paris. We just hopped on the RER C line (regional train) and followed the crowd because literally everyone was doing the same thing. You walk up a street and then BAM there the chateau is in all it's glory. Yeah, that set the tone. As if this view didn't.

And of course the famous golden gate, or "Gate of Honour." Which was so difficult to get a selfie with people are always going up to it. The golden gate was replaced in 2008 (the original gate was destroyed by the "common people" during the French revolution). So, technically those gates are replicas BUT they still have over 100,000 gold leaves so...I think they're pretty spectacular.

We got the audio tour so we could walk from room to room and hear about all the history and stories. It was truly fascinating and I caught myself wishing that I could have lived there back in its heyday. 
The chateau is obviously huge. It has 67,002 square meters of floorspace, including 700 rooms, more than 2,000 windows, 1250 chimneys, and 67 staircases! I mean, I guess you need a lot of room when you're housing the entire royal family and members of the French nobility. In it's heyday it had about 6,000 paintings and 5,000 pieces of furniture and objects in it! What I would do to go back in time and experience all that!!  Much of the furniture was sold after the revolution and slowly some have made their way back. Anyway, the chateau includes Le Galerie des Batailles, throne rooms, les grands appartments, l'appartment du roi (King's apartment), Salle du Sacre, Marble Court, Queen's Grand Apartment, chapels of Versailles, royal opera, and le Galerie des Glaces (aka "Hall of Mirrors"). This is a selfie of us the The Royal Chapel, which was completed in 1710. It's one of five chapels in Versailles--because having only one chapel is for amateurs. 

I was stopped dead in my tracks when I saw this room (lol at calling it a room..). It's the Hall of Mirrors, easily the most famous room in the chateau.

It was enchanting (henceI look like a crazy person in this photo). I learned that this room was especially spectacular because back in the day mirrors were obscenely expensive and to have so many mirrors was a very clear symbol of your wealth.

As if the chateau itself wasn't enough of an indication. This is a staircase. Quaint, isn't it?

And a hallway. That marble is ah-mazing! Put that in my someday house.

We saw the gardens briefly because it was raining on and off throughout the day. We would be in one room and look out the window to see a beautiful sunny day. We would be in the next room and it would pouring. Go figure. Luckily we got some photos during a sunny period. 

And this one of the actual gardens.

After a couple hundred more photos we hopped on the train to return to Paris for dinner. On my sister's recommendation we found a raclette restaurant...which was DELICIOUS! So what the heck is raclette you might ask. It's sort of like fondu, but better! We went to Les Fondus de la Raclette, which looked like this inside:

We actually sat in the right most see right next to the wooden divider too. 
First you select you choice of accouterments, which can be meats, charcuterie, vegetables, cornichons, or just potatoes, and then you are brought a giant platter of whatever you chose. Here was my platter:

Then comes the cheese. Raclette is usually an alpine swiss cheese made from cow's milk. Depending on the restaurant, you will do one of three things: (1) the server scrapes gooey cheese directly off a cheese wheel onto your plate (they did this at Raclette NYC when I was with my sister after this trip), (2) the cheese can be clamped in a heater to drip onto your plate (my sister had this in Amsterdam), or (3) you can melt it yourself as you go, which is what we had. There was a grill in the table and we were given two mini pans and wooden scrapes. You place the pan on the grill, add a slice of cheese, and let it do its thing (takes all of 15 seconds). 

 After dinner we rolled ourselves down to the Latin Quarter for our final Parisian hoorah, Le Moulin Rouge!

Ready for a story? Because this is a good one. (1) I ordered tickets to the Moulin Rouge months in advance. (2) I made our itinerary before going so I wouldn't miss anything that we had booked beforehand. (3) I took French in high school and knew very well how to say the days of the week. None of this stopped me from somehow messing up. 

We walk up to the entry and I excitedly show our tickets to get scanned. We had ordered VIP tickets because it came with champagne and macaroons (and as we learned that night...a goodie bag!). What showed up on the screen? A giant red X.

Turns out, we bought Mercredi tickets. Mercredi=Wednesday. But when did we saunter on up to the Moulin Rouge? Mmmhmm, Thursday. OH MY GOD. My heart sank. Luckily, we were dealing with the nicest gentleman ever and he quickly vanished to see what he could do. To be honest, he probably saw the newlywed-honeymooning-panic-on-the-verge-of-tears on my face and wanted to hide from me. In about 45 seconds he came back to us and said our table was ready. PHEW. We were in. 

I don't know if they have extra tables for when this happens, or if we got this treatment only because we bought the VIP tickets, but I will be eternally grateful. I hated that we looked like stupid Americans but it was the most honest of mistakes.

Sorry for the poor photos, the red light was strong (and yes I wore red to the Moulin Rouge). 

We got our champagne, our macaroons, and a WHOLE bag of gratis goodies, too! They gave all the VIPs a program, DVD of the show, keychain, and a few other things, all in a beautiful Moulin Rouge bag!

Luckily, it all worked out. The show was fantastic too. Took me a while to realize the girls were topless...lol. We obviously couldn't take photos of that! The show began at 11 and then ended around 1:30. We headed back to the Eiffel Tower for our final goodbye since we were leaving the next day.

Shining bright in all her twinkling glory. I am so honored to have seen the Eiffel Tower glisten in person and I hope I am lucky enough to return to see it again some day. 

The honeymoon continues in England. Check in on my next post to see what we got ourselves into there!