Le Chateau de Versailles

I like to swear.  I know it is a short cut – it’s lazy; but it feels so good.  The title to this post should be OMFG.  Formally, I’ll call it Versailles.  But you can call it OMFG too, if you like.  (If that makes you queasy, then you can just call it omg.) 

I am really looking forward to seeing the Chateau and the gardens.  The history of it makes me dizzy with anticipation.  I can’t wait to see le Domaine de Marie Antoinette and throw myself back in time to the era before the French revolution.  The day has dawned bright and glorious; it’s going to be hotter than forecast.  But we are armed with sunscreen and a plan.  With this much potential to a day, you know something will happen to screw up the works, half the fun is waiting to see what it will be.

French Coffee

courtesy:thebigpicture

We get off the train and, low, before us is a surprise.  The first Starbucks we’ve seen in Europe.  France’s coffee, particularly their espresso, is awful.  Really, France?  Do you hate the Italians that much?  You do so many things so beautifully, and yet you take something as enjoyable and potentially nuanced as a fine cup of espresso and it’s sewer water coming out of your crappy, automated machines.  Your coffee is so bad that Starbucks makes us weep with relief?  Starbucks – who generally over roast their beans, over pull their shots and overheat their milk.  Seriously, mon cheres, have some respect for your collective palette. 

We go in, and damn – the drink is not bad.  But then, water in the desert, right?  Also I note as we place our order – the first Americans we’ve seen in France are in line a few places ahead of us.  They are loudly asking the barista why something about the store isn’t just like it is in the States, perpetuating the American tourist stereotype.  I shrink back away from them and use my mercis and pardons as I move through the crowd.  I have no designs on passing myself off as anything other than American, but I am not going to question the poor barista over something they have no control over.

If you are ever going to visit Paris, and you want to go to Versailles, and you wait to buy tickets on the day you visit, I am going to save your day with my next words of wisdom.  From the train station, walk to the tourism office in Versailles and buy your tickets there.  If you get up to the gates where people are waiting in line to buy their tickets, and it doesn’t look too long, don’t be deceived; it is the definition of OMFG.  Let me explain.

I had intended to go to the tourism office.  I got distracted, as I often do, by our unexpected trip to Starbucks.  When we exited the store, we angled to walk in the shade and went up the far side of the block – one street down from the tourism office – so we missed it.  We didn’t realize this until we got to the gates of the Chateau.  We looked at each other.  Ken asks, should he go back the several blocks and go buy the tickets? 

Pictured: Aidan and I walking past 

an absence of ticket kiosks 

 I say no.  I’m thinking – it’s hot, there’s nowhere for us to wait in the shade, Aidan won’t last the day if we make him walk back, the longer we wait to go in, the more crowded it will get, etc.  And the line to get tickets at the Chateau doesn’t look that long.  Stupid me.  You see, in our long history together, we have this dumb rule that frequently pays off, but sometimes gets us into trouble.  That rule is loosely:  no going back.  Leave something at home?  Screw it, we can do without, or we can wing it.  Make a wrong turn?  We’ll find our way.  I don’t know, I guess it’s our effort to try to keep things spontaneous. 

So really, I have only myself to blame, and ugh, I hate that.  I will therefore try to lay the fault at the feet of the French.  After all, how hard can it be to buy tickets?  I have been to countless events in the US where I have to buy tickets.  Look at how easy it is to get into Disneyland.  And this is a national treasure of France, with millions of visitors per year, no sweat.  …Except for the beads that are gathering under my hair and starting to trickle down my spine.

We are in line.  The last remnants of the morning clouds slip away and the sun beats down on our heads.  Chateau people come through the line and give out guide maps in French, Italian, and Japanese, every freaking language but English.  For that map, you have to wait until you get to the ticket counter.  Cripes, this is making my chest tight as I am typing.  We turn the corner of the queue, facing into the sun now.  The Chateau people make announcements in French and Japanese.  If you are a French citizen, there is a separate line you can go to; students are free, yada yada.  

Pictured: Delft friggin' Blue

After 45 minutes, we are on the stairs heading into the building.  People push each other to get into the building and out of the sun.  There is an entire eighteenth century reception room full of queue lines yet to go.  There is also a wonderful breeze, but the French in their effort to not catch cold from a draft, only have one window open in the entire delft friggin’ blue place. 

We wind through the room into ANOTHER ROOM.  In this room, you can see through the doorway to the third room, where there are three ticket windows.  Actually, there are more than three ticket windows, but there are only three attendants working.  You know, because it’s a summer weekend and it’s not so busy or anything.  Sarcasm.  Strangely, there are also four kiosks in the room we are standing in.  They look disturbingly like machines that would take a credit card for ticket purchase.  No one is using them, because no one has been told that these machines, in fact, can be used to buy tickets.  Let me pause to relish this moment in my memory. 

OK – that was nice.  So – why wouldn’t these machines be stationed, oh, I don’t know, 200 yards back at the entrance to this building that was dedicated to “The Glory of France?”  A lady who spoke French saw an employee go by and stopped her and asked if she could buy tickets from the kiosks.  Yes, of course, was the answer.  The lady steps up.  Ken asks her if she’s buying tickets, yes she is.  We buy our tickets and head back out into the sunshine to get to the entry gate. 

That alone made me utter the omfg more than once.  But wait.  Because we did not go to a ticket window with a human, we were not offered the English version guide map.  That map is really critical.  Versailles is acres and acres of land (Disneyland is 85 acres, Versailles is 977.)  So big that you can rent golf carts to go through the gardens and outer palaces.  You can’t reserve them, of course, but you can stand in line for them.  If they are all rented out, then you can (of course!) wait in line until someone returns one.  It is so big that there is also a glass-enclosed, tractor pulled, rotisserie oven shuttle that runs around as well. 

While Ken takes Aidan to one of the few bathrooms in the place I go to grab a map.  Get this.  In order to get an English version of the guide map, you have to wait in an equally big line after you enter the palace grounds, at the Information Desk!  MFSOB OMFG.  At this point I am ready to commit murder.  I decide I should be able to just grab a map – I don’t need any questions answered from the attendant.  As if reading my mind, I watch as some dad does exactly what I intend.  omfg – he is shot down in flames by a stern-faced woman.  She directs him to get back in line.  But all he wants is a map.  Non.  I am ready to leave and never come back. 

I walked back out and met Ken and Aidan.  We decide to trade places and I go to the bathrooms with Riley as Ken tries his luck.  Here is where the nuns come in.  A kindness repaid with kindness.  Ken is no more successful than the poor dad I just saw.  However, as he is trying to bypass the line, some guy who hears him speak English asks if he needs a map, as he had just stood in line and took an extra.  So he gives it to Ken.  Awwww.

We tour the palace.  It is too crowded.  We are shoulder to shoulder with people who push and block Aidan from seeing things.  Even so, it is damn impressive.  And again, it is exciting to see this history right in our laps. 

Gross: too many people






We break free into the gardens and spend the rest of the day exploring things until our feet are burning and we can’t walk another step.  We rest on cool marble benches, eat and drink lots of frozen things.  We want to stay longer, but the heat has worn us out and we leave about an hour before closing.  It is definitely worth the trip but omfg, get your tickets ahead of time.

 Marie Antoinette's digs...  Her bedroom and then her kitchen...