OMG! Alarm didn’t go off and we wake up 50 minutes late and spring to the Metro and make it in time to meet up with our group. We train it to Versailles and pick up our bikes
and before you know it we are pedaling down city streets:
and then to the big farmer’s and covered market, where we enjoy coffee, quiche and pick up snacks for lunch. We’re off again and through the (now public) gardens of the estate:
receiving historical background:
visiting Marie Antoinette’s farm:
amazed at the clumps and varieties of wild mushrooms:
stop for lunch in the park, where we fulfill one item on our list of more whimsical “things to do in Paris”: imitate a statue (but not The Thinker)
Then we return the bikes, and head into the palace itself…A grim Louis XIV:
And then the usual:
king’s crib:
and my personal favorite (and Louis’) the Hall of Glass:
We board the train back to town and arrive about 7. We head down a different street, and I walk by the hotel where Nikki, Valerie and I stayed for V’s bday. And then right into the Asian restaurant that specializes in duck, for a quick meal of noodle soup with shrimp dumplings, as well as some sauteed prawns with veggies and crispy noodles.
the duck man at work:
then back for the night.