Misc and Etc with Cake: Versailles

Tuesday, 31st July '12
Even though we had the best intentions, we arrived at Versailles around 11, when we meant to arrive much earlier to avoid queues. It was strange but my phone ran out of battery during the night and hence my alarm didn't go off, but I woke up and read my watch completely and utterly wrong and said it was 9 when it was like 7. No idea how I eff-ed that up, but I somehow did. And even though we woke up EARLIER than I'd set the alarm, we were still super late. It was because there was some track work that confused the hell out of us as we got so lost trying to find a station to use the alternate route.

Anyway, we arrived eventually and subsequently spent the next large portion of our time standing in a line. First to buy Sarah a ticket... if I were alone that would be an inconvenience I could've avoided, but the real massive line was the one through security and into the Palace.

This is like 1/10th of the line.

The entire visit was manic. There was just a ridiculous amount of people, and we had to shuffle our way through massive lines to look at rooms that were roped off. A lot of the cool stuff was roped off, but it was fun to be able to take pictures of them without people ruining the illusion... but alas, it was impossible to get to the front of most of these things to see them.

The palace itself was just so intense. I just cannot fathom how something so elaborate could possibly exist, just the time and the patience and the money it would take to make something like that just blows my mind. The grandeur of the gardens though were really what I enjoyed, as it was just so massive and it was nice to wonder around it without being assaulted by tourists at every turn. I didn't realise just how MASSIVE the gardens were, and every minute detail is attended to. Mental, absolutely mental. It was pretty hot though, and I came home a bit burnt. Even though I used the umbrella as a parasol most the day.