Versailles and a few corners of Paris

We called last night to schedule a cab to arrive at 4:30 a.m.to take Principessa and Giovanni to Charles de Gaulle Airport to catch their 7:30 flight from Paris to London and back home to Seattle. Their two weeks had flown by, and there was still so much to see and do. Hopefully, they'll be back!

Since it was Sunday, most of the remaining group wanted to visit Versailles. We knew that the fountains only operated on the weekends, so it was a good day to visit. I said I'd been to Versailles 6 times over the years, and would rather investigate some other places in Paris.

So, Ricardo and I headed to Parc Monseau and the Musée Nissim de Camondo. Parc Monceau is located in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, northeast of L'Arc du Triomphe, and is a charming little park created in the 1600s. It's surrounded by elegant homes, one of which contains the Musée Nissim de Camondo. The story behind this museum is heart-wrenching. The house was built in 1911 by Comte Moise de Camondo, a Jewish banker. He filled the house with French artwork and antiques, and, upon his death in 1936, the Comte bequeathed the home and contents to the city of Paris, in honor of his only son Nissim, who was killed in action during World War I. His daughter Beatrice continued to live there with her husband and two children after her father's death. During WWII, when the Jews of Paris were rounded up and sent to Drancy and then Auschwitz, Beatrice wasn't concerned. By then she had divorced her Jewish husband and converted to Catholicism. She had high-ranking friends among the Nazis occupying Paris, with whom she rode horses in Parc Monceau, and who she probably entertained in her home. Her ex-husband warned her to leave Paris, for her own safety. She didn't heed his warning, and was arrested and sent, first to Drancy, then to Auschwitz, where she, her ex-husband, and both her grown daughter and son were executed in the gas chambers. Her ex-husband and son had been captured in another part of France while they were attempting to escape. The museum remains a monument to the love of Paris that her family felt, and the betrayal of that love and trust by not only the Nazi occupiers, but the many French people involved in assisting the Nazis round up the Jews of Paris.

Charming Parc Monseau

Another photo of Parc Monceau

Beautiful copper pots in the kitchen of the Musee Nissim de Camondo

Grand salon of the Musee Nissim de Camondo

Library of the Musee Nissim de Camondo

Ricardo and I stopped for lunch at a charming brasserie, Le Valois 1868, on Place Rio de Janerio, filled with Parisiens having Sunday lunch.

Ricardo looking pretty serious when faced with an awesome prawn cocktail

Here's me, with my favorite part of any meal in France, a little espresso with a few pieces of chocolate.

The food was very good, and the atmosphere very refined. 

After lunch, we headed to the corner where Owen Wilson got picked up in the Woody Allen movie, Midnight in Paris. It was on the other side of the river, a Metro ride away, near the Pantheon, and we weren't the only ones there for that reason. We took turns sitting on the steps of the church of St. Etienne-du-Mont, where Owen sat waiting at midnight for the vintage car to pick him up and transport him back to Paris in the 1920s. 

If only that car would come by and take Ricardo back to a time when he could talk to Ernest Hemingway.

Looking down the street where Owen Wilson was picked up in the movie. Except for the modern cars, it's authentic to the 1920s.

A few blocks away was l'Arene de Lutece, an ancient Roman arena constructed in the 1st century AD, when it could seat 15,000 people. Covered over and lost for centuries, it was discovered in the mid-1800s when excavation for a tram stop was started. At that point, the intact part of the arena was unearthed and preserved. Stones from parts of the arena had been collected centuries before to be used in the building of other things in the area. It's fun to see how much the arena is used by the locals even now.

People playing soccer and just enjoying a Sunday afternoon at l'Arene de Lutece

Meanwhile, the other 6 in our group had taken the train out to Versailles. They arrived about mid-day, and the security line was long. Their Paris Museum Passes covered entrance into the palace, so that probably saved some time in line.

Versailles gets high marks as a place to see when visiting Paris. Rick Steves says it combines 3 blockbuster sights - the chateau, the gardens and the outlying area of the Trianon Palaces and Marie Antionette's Hamlet. The group hoped to see all three. 

The train from Paris, a 35-minute ride, always makes me think about the long, long march of the housewives of Paris out to the palace before the revolution. They were marching to complain about the high price of bread, a staple of the french diet - now and then. This was the beginning of the end for the naive king and queen. 

The train station is about 10 minutes from the palace, on foot. Walking distances within the palace grounds are farther than that, with the Hamlet being farthest away, at about a 40 minute walk from the palace. Luckily, there is a tram that takes visitors to the Grand Trianon, and then it's just another few minutes to the Hamlet.

Approaching Versailles. Over 1,000 rooms, but just 2 bathrooms. Just kidding.

Some of the ornate decoration inside the chapel of Versailles

The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles

The king's bedroom at Versailles

Because this was a "Spectacle" weekend, there was an additional charge to go behind the palace to see the gardens, ponds, Trianons and Hamlet. I'm not sure what the spectacle actually was, aside from the fountains being turned on for a few hours during the day. But, that is kind of a big production.

This area is called l'Orangerie, where the king proved that he was a god by making fruit trees bloom and produce fruit out of season. In reality, he had the trees moved inside at night to force them to flower.

One of the charming little houses in Marie Antionette's Hamlet

The group caught the last tram from the Grand Trianon to the Palace just before 6, and headed back into Paris. The nice thing about the train at Versailles is that it's only going to Paris, so you don't have to check schedules and tracks to get the right one.

The Versailles group stopped for pizza on the way back to our apartment, and brought a few leftovers back with them. 

Amazingly, after a full day of sightseeing, we even had the energy to play a few games of cards before collapsing into our beds.

This was the light fixture in one of the bedrooms at our Paris apartment.