Journey to the West: 30 Nov 07

My original plan was to go to Disneyland today, but due to some unforeseen circumstances, I had to put it off and switch to plan B. Le chateau de Versailles was the attraction of the day. After close to an hour ride on the RER (the suburban line for Paris outskirt regions), I reached the town of Versailles. As I walked towards the castle, the first thought that came to my mind was "wow, this is gonna be tough". It proved to be true later on as I spent close to 5 hours in total. Considering that I was all by myself, with medium walking speed and without much waiting time, 5 hours were really a significant number.

Château de Versailles et l'intérieur!

Indeed, Versailles was perhaps the biggest castle I have visited in Europe so far. This site was once inhabited by the French monarchy, notably Louis XIV and his families. Like many other castles, the palace has many intricately-decorated rooms, with nice wall and ceiling paintings. However, unlike other palaces which were richly coated in gold, this palace was famous for its silverwork, with a total of close to 20 tonnes of silver used.

L-R: Hall of Mirrors; The Royal Chapel

The best thing about Versailles was that the visitors were allowed to take photos, except in the temporary exhibition areas. The audioguide was not of much help to my understanding and I was more interested in capturing images of the interior of the palace (it was a rare opportunity =P). Afterall, I guess I would forget most of the history told in the audioguide.

The colourful, intricately-designed rooms

Anyway, the palace was HUGEEEEEE. Let me redefine what huge means. Huge means you take one hour to walk at medium speed from the palace, through the vast gardens, ending at the Domaine de Marie Antoinette (the end of the site). The garden was supposed to be really awesome, but too bad it was winter so all I saw was green patches of grass and trees without leaves. The statues have been wrapped up to protect them from the bad weather as well.

Views from the palace garden

After close to an hour walk, I finally reached the Grand Trianon. If I did not hear wrongly from a lady there, this place was dedicated for all the mistresses/concubines of Louis XIV. More splendid rooms inside, after which I left for the estate of Marie Antoinette. This was my favourite place in the whole of Versailles as it was as good as a completely different world. It had the countryside touch, with a quiet and tranquil environment as well as a small lake.

1st row (left): Grand Trianon; the rest: Domaine de Marie Antoinette

After Versailles, I headed back to Paris centre and went to the Montparnasse area. I had the intention to take the elevator up to the 56th floor of La Tour Montparnasse which offered “the best panoramic view” of Paris. I thought the tariff of 7 euros was a bit too much and I was not sure if I could see anything since the weather has been quite bad. So I decided that I could do without the panoramic view and I just walked around the area. Nice neighbourhood, with many little wooden stalls selling local handicrafts as well as chocolates. I spoilt myself by buying one chocolate which had marshmallow inside. Letch will so gonna love this! Haha.

Montparnasse neighbourhood

I did not spend much time in Montparnasse as it was more of a shopping area and I did not have “le pouvoir d’achat” (purchasing power) anyway. So I made my way to La Défense” at the end of the metro line 1. This place is the equivalent of Singapore’s CBD with all the tall buildings and business centres. La Défense boasts many outstanding modern architectures, notably Le Grand Arc de La Défense, Les Quatres Temps and Le Dome. It was then that I realised that Paris was not only a classy city with Eiffel Tower and Musée de Louvre, but it was also a busy business city. It totally debunked the myth of “always-knock-off-at-17h” as the lights in the office towers were still on at 20h30.

L-R: Le Grand Arc de La Défense; the Paris Business District

And Noel (Christmas) was clearly in sight. There was a Marche de Noel held at the open space in front of the grand arc. My first Christmas market experience and I loved it!! The various stalls sold a variety of handcrafts, food, decorative lamps, aromatherapy, etc…There was a magic wallet, in which we could place a piece of card inside the wallet, then as we folded the wallet 180 degrees, the card would be placed nicely under a rubber compartment. Another woman was promoting this “blackboard” which did not require a chalks or drawing/colouring pencils to draw things. What the children needed to do was to press on the board in certain ways and different colours will emerge on the board. A different way of swiping the board will have the effect of “erasing” the previous designs. We could also place a picture on top of the board, and trace the design with our nails and the exact same design will appear on the board. Interesting.