The Palace of Versailles

It was another gorgeous weather day here in Paris and it was the day we scheduled a 4-hour, small-group tour with ParisCityVision.com to go to Versailles.

If you are ever trying to decide whether to do a full or half day tour at Versailles, do a full day tour if you can. I say this for a couple of reasons:

1. It takes about 40 minutes to get out of the city to Versailles and about 50 minutes or so to get back in due to the rush hour (and we'll talk about Paris traffic in a moment).

2. It takes about 20 minutes to find parking and to walk to the front entrance.
3. It takes another 15 minutes for your tour guide to go and get the group registered and then get everyone into the first room to view.

Once the tour is over, you'll be given some time to do whatever you want and are to meet your tour guide at a designated spot.




The gardens are HUGE.

It took us a full 35 minutes to briefly go through the gift store and then head down a cobble-stoned slope to where we thought we should be going and it turns out we came out about 3 blocks away from where our tour guide was probably waiting on us stragglers to get back to her. She did tell us that she would not wait if anyone was late. Fortunately she waited 5 minutes for us. I tipped her 5Euro for that.

Versailles is incredibly opulent and it is wonderful to see as much of it as you can.  If you would like to check out the video I made of our tour, you can find it at: http://youtu.be/IiRHMnoyHvk


Paris Traffic

I am so glad I didn't consider renting a car for this trip! While I also researched the public rental bike system "Velib", there's no way in hell now that I'm here that I would risk myself to use one.

There are no lines on the roads really--they're imaginary. Just watching the chaos going around the Arche Due Triomphe three times now is enough anxiety for me! Cars appear to be cutting each other off--today I saw a car on the inner ring near the Arche, cut across two "rings" of traffic to get to the outer ring. It seems like 40% of the vehicles are motorcycles and maybe another 20% are bicycles and they are all very daring. A few times I've heard a motorcycle's mirrors knocking and scraping against the side of vehicles. The people on motorcycles are from all walks of life. They're not your typical "biker" like we may see in Canada, these are people coming to and from work, biking in fashionable wedge heels and a dressy pant suit with a helmet. I'm not talking about a scooter. We're talkin' motorcycles.

 Bon soir mes amis!