Versailles and Paris

We left our B&B in Bellac, and headed to Versailles. We did tour the palace, but there was no stopping to listen to the history of every peice of furniture etc. We had to keep moving so we got to listen to the audio commentary for about 10 seconds in each room.

(Right) The gate and front of the Palace.

(Left) The interior (from the second floor) of the chapel.

(Left) This is the king's bed chamber. (Below) The queen's bedchamber where 19 children of France were born. Every birth was a public affair so there was no question as to the legitimacy of the child.

(Right) The outside of the chapel.

I think this is the drawing room in the apartments of the dauphin and dauphine. I think my Grandma will love this room. The fabric reminded me of her. :) Not sure why...

The Hall of Mirrors. >

Ezra and Jonas were pretty happy when we finally made it out of the Palace and into the gardens.

Out in the gardens. Mike and Jonas checking out the swans.

Ezra enjoyed the triangle trees.

The boys found a stump to sit on while Daddy checked out the map.

After we left Versailles, we headed for Paris to spend the night. We ate at Hard Rock again. :) On the way out in the morning, we swung by Starbucks and then got diverted through the city because many streets were closed due to the Paris Marathon. We ended up driving right by a lot of the sites (but not the Eiffel Tower).

Here is the Louvre.

And St. Michael's Fountain.

And a cool sun dial near Notre Dame that I had never seen before.

This is the back of Notre Dame.

I tried to get some pictures of the marathon runners, but they were pretty far away from where we sat in traffic.

Then we headed home. All in all, it was a really fun trip. The kids were good for such a lot of time in the car and being in a different place every night. We only had one day of rainy weather, traffic was really only in the cities, and we got to see so much! It was a great success!