Paris Bound

After spending the morning in Chartres, we drove to Versailles, to see Louis XIV’s famous palace. Admission to the palace is expensive, but the garden is free, so we spent our time outside. Versailles is an incredibly opulent place. The garden alone is mind-boggling. It spans nearly 800 hectares of immaculately kept land, full fountains, flowers, and topiaries. It even includes a small canal which can accommodate boats! As we wandered through these regal gardens, we reflected on the use of wealth. Apparently, Louis XIV bankrupted France to build his palace. As Brendan pointed out, no wonder the people revolted! It’s one thing to make a nice garden – quite another to take bread from the mouths of the poor to do it. I suppose this kind of abuse of wealth and power happens all the time – it just exposes itself unabashedly at Versailles. Walking through the garden felt a bit like a guilty pleasure – it was beautiful, but at what cost? I’m glad we went though, both for the experience and for the conversation it generated.

Back of the palace from the middle of the garden (yes, middle - it extends this far the other way too!)

Upon leaving the palace we set out to find a place to leave our rental car for the duration of our time in Paris. Brendan had been to Paris before and knew that the driving there is absolute madness – he thought it best for our marriage if we left the car outside the city and took the train in! And so ended the largest driving portion of the trip (we would still have to drive back to Hoofddorp to return the car, but most of the driving was behind us). I wasn’t sure how Liam would handle all the car time, but he did amazingly well. I sat in the back to either console or entertain him, and fortunately, my job wasn’t too difficult. Often after my attention had been elsewhere for a while, I would turn to him and see this:

Playing with Black Peter, a Christmas gift from Gladys & Carlo

Seeing his adorable little face smiling up at me was definitely a highlight of the driving hours! We had great fun in the back seat smiling, laughing and talking together. He did cry occasionally, but we managed to avoid total meltdowns by stopping when necessary and making sure he kept to his regular feeding and napping schedule. Traveling with a little one is definitely more work than going alone, but Liam seems to be a particularly travel-friendly baby – for which we were very grateful!

Luckily the train ride from Versailles to Paris is quick, so we didn’t have far to go with all our bags. Our hotel was also very conveniently located near a metro stop, which made our city travel easy. Our room in Paris felt quite luxurious compared to the places we had been staying in Normandy. All the hotels we stayed in were clean and satisfied our needs, but the rooms were small and often did not include a bathroom. So when we arrived at Hotel Printemps to find not only a bathroom in the room, but also a little hallway that connected it to the main area, we felt like royalty! After settling in a bit and skyping with our parents, we set out for the Champs de Mars to see the Eiffel Tower lit up. We were both really excited to be in Paris. I loved my first taste of the city and couldn’t wait to discover more of its treasures in the coming days.