When visiting Marie Antoinette’s House The Palace of Versailles, you must be prepared for anything. Our second day in France we embarked on our journey to Versailles through intermittent rain and cold. What started off as a mostly sunny with clouds day ended with a really funny memory and a great day. Make note, you will need tickets to get in – and here are different levels of tickets that you can purchase. How do I know this? First hand experience and something I still feel slightly guilty about to this day. Allow me to elaborate.
To get to the Palace of Versailles from Paris you will need to board a train that takes approximately 60-90 minutes. We started early to get a jumpstart on our day- there is a lot to see. Besides the amazing golden gilded palace, there is an extensive estate and gardens that sprawl out from every which way. Tennis shoes are a must. The walk from the train station to the palace gates is about 15 minutes. Upon your arrival up to the gates you will be asked to wait in line and directed based on the set of tickets you have purchase. There are of course, general assembly tickets which are great if you have time to burn. We thought we had purchased VIP tickets online that included the VIP entrance and felt very clever until we discovered they were only kind-of VIP tickets. This meant waiting at least 1-2 hours in a different line which was not going to work with our plans to see the gardens & Marie Antoinette’s chickens. It was time to make a choice: wait for hours in line OR walk up to the front with many foreign tourists and cut the line. We weighed our options and the choice was clear- in order to see everything on our list that we had to cut the line. Although, let’s be honest here. It was 99% my decision. Finally, at the front of the line, we started the tour inside the golden palace.
The Palace is truly breathtaking and worth every step imaginable. The walls and fixtures are lined with gold leaf and tapestries that date back to the time of Marie Antoinette herself. There is not one square inch of the palace that is undecorated and beautifully well kept. Everything from the carpeted walls to the flooring to the furniture is perfectly preserved. It is like being on the set of a movie. After visiting the hall of mirrors and taking copious amounts of pictures, it was time to have lunch before touring the gardens.
Inside the Palace, we ate lunch at Angelina’s. The restaurant allows tourists to dine in actual rooms of the palace which is so COOL. The fixtures are guarded mostly by plastic and rubber, but everything is completely intact so you do feel as if you have time traveled. We delighted in some amazing Chablis, french onion soup and some pasta dishes. Everything was fresh and beautiful, our stomachs certainly felt royal. And of course, for dessert, we indulged in the Angelina’s world famous hot chocolate. It did not disappoint.
It was time to hike out to visit Marie Antoinette’s chickens and other animals that remain direct decedents of the Queen’s animals. I’m not sure why, but I find that very cool. We set off trekking to find the animals. The grounds and gardens at the Palace of Versailles are extensive. We walked for what seemed like forever and as we approached the barn and neighboring animal stalls, I got super excited. We approached the chicken wire coop and started to look for the chickens….there were NONE. Sadly, the chickens had been impacted by the bird flu or taken away to keep the flu from spreading. I was DEVASTATED, but at least we got to see the sheep. After licking my wounds and taking a break from my aching feet, we set back to the Palace. We were tired and it looked like it was going to rain.
Twenty minutes into our hike back to the Palace, we decided to take a golf cart back. It was totally worth the 30 euros as we were exhausted. The golf cart let us off about 100 feet from the main building. Just then, it started to rain. HARD. And it was windier then hell. A torrential downpour with gale force winds was Karma for cutting the line. The universe was settling the score. As we started to run against the rain and wind, we pulled out our umbrella and would hop from building to building as the rain let up. At 6’4”John managed to make large shield from the rain and wind between his body and the umbrella. Just then a small group of asian tourists took note. They did not have an umbrella and did not want to take a chance soaking their Louis Vuittons. They formed a line directly behind John and me. We were linked together in a weather channel conga line. When we ran from the rain and wind, they followed quickly behind us. The universe had given us a chance to redeem ourselves. We had saved our asian tourist friends from being soaked and they thanked John profusely for blocking them from the elements.
We exited the grounds of Versailles and headed toward the train station soaked and hungry. Thankfully there was a french McDonald’s for us inhabit to catch a quick bite and dry off before heading back to the hotel. We recounted the amazing day, made a pact to come back in the future, and that we would buy the much better VIP tickets because our kids would probably be with us and it would be wrong to teach them to cut the line. The entire train ride back we couldn’t stop laughing making the day trip to Versailles completely worth it.
