Trips, Pics, and Tales

After lunch back on the ship, we went with our group on one of the optional excursions to Versailles.  During the time we would be touring this most magnificent palace, the ship was going to sail towards Paris, and we would meet up at it's new destination.  Very nice!  No backtracking for us! We've all heard about the opulence, and grandeur of Versailles, but until you actually arrive, I don't think one can actually be prepared for just how big, and how, well, shining this palace actually is! I was expecting it to be crowded, and it was, but it was never unbearably crowded.  Our guide went up to a group window and got our tickets for us and we we walked right in. No lines to wait in.   So much gold!  Everywhere you turned...and we weren't even inside yet! While the rooms were filled with people, we were always escorted to just that right place to stand and told our stories and then moved along as if we were the only people that mattered.

It was already Thursday!  This cruise was going so quickly....today we had two different included options for our morning. We could either go to visit Van Gogh's Auvers-sur-Oise.  This is where Van Gogh spent his last three months. I'd heard this was a great tour! Or we could go to visit the palace that Josephine purchased for Napoleon and herself, the Château de Malmaison. Carol and I decided that today would be a day of Palaces, and chose the Château. In 1799 Joséphine purchased the run down estate while Napoléon Bonaparte was away fighting.  He wasn't too happy about the purchase, but she vowed to make Malmaison "the most beautiful and curious garden in all of Europe, a model of good cultivation".   We toured many of the rooms of the Château which was restored in the early 20th century. Joséphine's dinner service Joséphine's personal toiletries The luxurious bedchamber of Joséphine