Paris Day 1: Versailles

I'm back from my Euro trip, safe and sound. Here is the first set of my photos. Hope you like them! The photos will be after the break, because there are so many of them.



I travelled to Heathrow via Malaysia. It took around 20 hours all together. I flew with Air Malaysia, which wasn't too bad. Most of their food had some sort of shrimp, which I didn't eat. But they also handed out icecream, which was nice.
When I arrived at Heathrow, my best friend Merissa was waiting at the gate for me :)
We took the tube to Kings Cross to get the Eurostar to Paris. I was very tired when we got to our hotel, I went straight to bed.

The next day we woke up and went straight to a cafe to try some French pastries. I had a citron tart and pain du chocolat with a cup of tea. Me and Merissa tried our hardest to speak French, but we weren't that good.

After breakfast we headed to the metro near Notre Dame to get the train to Versailles (There will be more photos of Notre Dame later). The metro was not too hard to figure out, but the express train to Versailles wasn't running so we had to get a train that took nearly 1 hour :(

The walk from the metro to Versailles wasn't very long. I actually bought my smartphone with me on my trip, but left my sim card at home. I used an offline navigation system called Sygic, which was very useful.

Because I have a British passport, I got into Versailles for free (I have both a British and Australian passport, because my dad was born in the UK). I bought a ticket for Merissa online, which was cheaper, and it meant that we didn't need to line up twice. We went straight through to the palace.

Merissa and I were so excited! I both LOVE costume history and old things like this. We tried to imagine what it would be like in the past.

We got a audio guide and followed the map through the palace. Although we arrived early in the morning, it still was pretty busy!

Merissa is standing in front of a HUUUGE fireplace.

The ceilings were amazing! There were also lots of people using their tablets as cameras, which looked really stupid.

It was very warm in some of the rooms and galleries, they had some windows open so it was a good chance to catch a cool breeze and take an outside photo. In the background you can see the lake where the Queen had mini-ships that used to sail around.

Most of the furniture and artwork was looted, everything seen in Versailles is a recreation of what it might have looked like. They have recovered a few of the original items, which is really good!

Versailles was a great place to visit, I recommend it 100%. Walking through the palace, it's amazing to see the extravagance that was everyday life for the rich and powerful. 

We wanted to visit the Queens estate too, but we couldn't figure out how to get there. We could have walked through the gardens, but they wouldn't let us through without paying (although we had already bought palace tickets). We were way too tired to figure it out, so we walked back to the train station.

There was a ring of hawkers surrounding the exit, so we had to keep telling them to go away because they were very annoying. Trying to get us to buy crappy stuff :(

We passed a tattoo parlour on the way back, and one of the artists was outside having a smoke. He exclaimed "magnifique" as we walked passed, so that was a confidence boost!

We stayed in the Hotel Du Commerce, which was nice. This is the view from our window on the third story. The hotel was cheap, and in the Latin Quarter only a 5 min walk from Notre Dame.

On the way back to our hotel we saw lots of vintage stores along the Seine river with books, art prints and postcards. We found these cheap erotic postcards, I think we got 8 for 2 euro. Bargain!

We were suppose to go on a walking ghost tour in the night, but I felt physically ill. It was terrible! I wanted to go on the tour, but I felt like I was going to puke. I think it was the stress and different time zones. Instead, I went to bed while Merissa stayed up with her laptop.

Next: The Paris Catacombs!!

2013 Trip:

Paris Day 1 [here]

Paris Day 2 [here]

Paris Day 3 [here]

Rome Day 1 [here]

Rome Day 3 [here]

Rome Day 3 [here]

Vienna Day 1 [here]

Vienna Day 2 [here]

Vienna Day 3 [here]

Berlin Day 1 [here]

Berlin Day 2 [here]

Berlin Day 3 [here]

UK [here]