Day 51: Versailles

Today was a bit crazy. The plan was to go to Versailles for the day. Weather reports kind of indicated a chance of scattered showers, but it didn't look like anything too serious and I figured the chance of rain might just keep crowds away some. Everything went pretty smoothly in getting there by metro and train, although fully half of the people on the train seemed to have the wrong type of ticket when they came around to check. It's not that difficult to read signs and follow rules and it annoys me when people just ignore instructions because they can't be bothered with them. It's the same with foreign languages. I totally understand that it's impossible to always speak the language in places you visit, but it annoys me when tourists have the expectation that locals will speak their language, and get upset when they don't. (ok, rant done)

Anyway, I got my ticket and went to the palace. The person that gave me the ticket warned that the line into the palace itself would be really long until early afternoon, so suggested I spend the morning in the gardens instead to let the line die down. It was overcast but there was no rain, so I headed into the massive garden and started looking around. About ten minutes in it started to drizzle. Drizzle turned to rain, rain turned to hail, and hail turned to a bombardment of ice accompanied by thunder, lightning and bitter cold wind. I tried taking shelter under a tree for awhile, but it wasn't offering much cover and I was already soaking wet so I just decided to take what nature threw and push on. There were two silver linings in all of this. First, I basically had the massive gardens to myself, and second, I had the foresight to wear my brand new water-resistent quick drying pants, so they got their first adventure. Unfortunately I hadn't brought my warmer jacket since I hadn't anticipated things being quite so cold and wet, and my hoodie really offered no protection. I didn't take any pictures during the worst of it as my camera would have been soaked in seconds, but here's some pictures from just as the action was starting and the aftermath. I lost track of the poor cat, but hopefully it found better shelter than I did.

There were a lot of sculptures in the gardens, but the most amazing part was the fountains, which were by far the coolest I've ever seen. They weren't running, but just the figures rising out of the water in elaborate arrangements and battles was very imipressive.

Little archers riding swans fighting a dragon - definitely a lot cooler than a jet of water shooting up in the air.

After about 2 hours in the rain things finally started to clear up, so just as people were starting to hesitantly creep out from the safety of the palace I came striding up from the thick of the garden, wet and covered in mud but in high spirits. I wouldn't want to spend every day like this (and hopefully I don't get sick again, just as I'm finally healthy again) but the part of me that loves challenges and adventure just sparks up at these challenges nature throws at you and the more ridiculous the weather gets the more fun trooping on through it gets.

The inside of the palace was still crowded, but the audio tour was one of the better ones I've had, and the rooms were roped off to give a clear flow so things moved pretty well. Some of the paintings and ceiling artwork were really nice, but I found the famous Hall of Mirrors a bit dull (and too crowded). The fancy furniture in some of the rooms was another highlight, such as this globe from the chambers of the Dauphin.

Switching hostels tomorrow to another in Paris for 2 days. I had planned to use my Eurail pass to tour around some small nearby places tomorrow, but I'm a bit behind with planning so I think I'll take it a bit easy tomorrow and try to do the train things Thursday.