France - Thursday (Versailles)

Thursday, 16 November 2017

Yes, you read it okay, Versailles for the second time.  As Patricia had never visited the castle, and I had never had the opportunity to see the Petit and Grand Trianons, nor the Hameau de la reine (the queen's hamlet), we had bought double tickets so that we could spend some extra time.

We went back on Thursday morning, only to be greeted by a long queue of people waiting at closed gates.  We knew that there was a strike imminent, and we had already left a bit later, but were still a bit too early.  We decided that now was the best time to search for that cache that we knew to be close by.  We walked over to the street at the other side of the castle and started our search.  As my compass played up near the high buildings I knew to widen my search and finally made the find in the ivy across the street.  I called Patricia over, we signed the log and returned the container.  When we looked up we saw the line of people moving, so it was time for us to move as well.

#1791 - Versailles-Chesnay #1  Le Château (revival)

It may have been a bit misty, but the sun was out and it was a glorious start of the day.  We walked straight to the gardens, where I couldn't resist taking another picture of the grounds in all their glory and then we walk on to the Grand Trianon.  Here we got to see lovely furnished rooms and the whole feel was more cosy, albeit not less opulent, than the big castle.  Almost homely, but I like to reserve that description for the Petit Trianon.

There are a few caches in the gardens and we know there is one on the way to the Grand Trianon, so we make an effort to find it.  Well, we do find it, sort of, but it is under a little bridge and from other logs of other cachers we suspect that the container has been thrown too far under and is now out of reach.  We have sent the pictures to the CO and logged the find anyway.  If not okay he may delete our logs.

#1792 - Verdure in Versailles (cache)

After our find we walk to the

Le Grand Trianon

At strategic places you'll find guards who keep an eye on what's going on.  Very much needed in this day and age, I can tell you.  However, as this is not high season there is not a whole lot to do for them and they are happy to have a chat.

We encountered one of them on our rounds and started a chat.  He with limited English, I with limited French, but we got quite a conversation going....  He was almost hanging on to us, he enjoyed it probably as much as we did, but.... of course we had to go on.  There was so much more to see, so we walked on to our next stop:

Le Petit Trianon

The two mirrored panels are special.  They can slide up and down and thus close
off the room or open up the room and let the light in through the windows.

Outside we noticed a seller of baked potatoes in jackets.  As it was way past lunch time and cool enough to eat something hot we thought it would make a good lunch.  Then we were off to the part I had been looking forward to most of all: Le Hameau de la reine (The queen's hamlet).

It really is an, almost whimsical, hamlet, built for Queen Marie Antoinette as a kind of retreat for her.  In her time she enjoyed the working farm, the mill, the dairy and vegetable gardens.  The farm had (and still has) a great range of animals.  Only the actual dairy and dairy preparation room don't exist any more.  There are a few walls that depict the place where they were standing at the time.

The reason I was looking forward to seeing all of this is, because I have just finished reading a book about Mme Tussaud, who lived during the French revolution and actually visited the queen and queen's sister at Versailles and also the hamlet.

Le Hameau de la reine

On the way back, and it had been a very long walk, we needed to sit down for a cup of coffee again.  It had been another wonderful day and since these buildings are a kind of outpost in the grounds of the castle, we managed to almost walk 10 km!

And we hadn't quite done walking, because we needed to find something for dinner and a few groceries to keep us going for the next few days, so we walked to the market halls.  It was hard to decide what to get, but I ended up with some pastry with spinach inside and a kind of terrine with ham and egg.  This is what it looked like (picture from the internet):

It tasted great with the nice and crusty French bread.  And as we next walked past a stall where they prepared fresh crèpes we couldn't resist and took one of those home too.

We have a very pleasant B&B (airbnb).  We have our own apartment on the top floor of one of the typical French/Parisian buildings.  It consists of a bedroom with room to sit and eat at a small table and we have a king size bed.  There is TV available, but Patricia would have preferred English channels, of which there were none.  There is also a huge bathroom and a small kitchenette, just big enough to make a simple meal.  At this stage I only have a picture of the bathroom and one of the kitchenette.  Will try and get some more pictures later, but since we have already left (while I am writing this) I may pinch the pictures from the airbnb site....

The hostess as very kind too and makes sure that we have all we need and that we are warm enough on the top floor.

Bathroom with the lights and mirrors reflecting in the tiles on the wall above the bath

Kitchenette