Paris, France V: Versailles

A trip to Paris just seems incomplete if you don't visit Versailles.















Everything was so intricate, so grand, so rich. Our tickets came with audio guides (EUR15; there are non-audio guide versions as well) so when you enter each room, you press the number associated with it and viola, a nice lady starts telling you more about the room. I can hardly remember anything I heard because it was SO crowded. We were packed like sardines I tell you. Half the time, I was trying not to lose sight of my friend, and the other half was spent furiously clicking on my camera. It was hard to have photos without a head or a hand popping into your frame.







Tall bush mazes surround the Garden of Versailles which requires a separate ticket to enter (EUR8.50). There are nice fountains inside but most of them weren't operational. Besides that, there wasn't much to see.

I thought the free park behind the Garden was much nicer (but I'm not sure how you can get there without crossing the Garden). You can take a stroll along shady rows of magnificent trees, row a boat leisurely in the large pond, read a book or have a picnic on the grass patch beside the bank (you will get chased away if you  try to sit on the grass in the Garden!).





How to get there?
We took the metro to Port de Sèvres (last stop of line 9) then transferred to bus 171 which stops right in front of Versailles.