Kool Kevans: Paris- day 5

Ok- on day 5, we went to the Palace of Versailles. We took a train to get there and it was a longer ride (about 40 minutes or so). At one point on the train, the doors opened at one of the stops and all of a sudden this guy starts saying something in French and then we hear an accordion playing rather loudly. We were on the upper level and facing away from where he was, but then when he was done playing, he walked up to our level and walked around with his hat so people could give him donations. Thankfully he walked right by us but then he stopped a few rows away and just stood there for about three whole minutes and played a little tune until someone finally gave him a euro or two to go away. Ha! It made me laugh. I thought it was hilarious because I saw the whole thing! so funny. But I guess that is one way to get some money.

We got to the palace and I was just amazed at how big it was and how much gold (I don't know if it is real or just paint...) there was and how many statues were on the outside of it. It really is amazing to think people lived like this way back when. But it also got me wanting to take a tour of the white house in Washington DC. I bet that place is huge, and that is where the president and his family lives...

Anyway. I just took a bunch of pictures of things I thought my kids would like to see or things that I thought were cool or interesting.

This door was huge. And lots of gold.

And you can't tell by the picture, but this fireplace is huge as well. Those logs were huge!

This is blurry, but all of the ceilings were very intricately decorated and painted.

This was the "Hall of Mirrors". Laurel and I were most excited to see this room. I thought it was going to be like a mirror maze type thing because of the name...but it turns out it is just a room with big mirrors in it. And, we didn't even know we were in it at the time. I didn't even see the mirrors because I was busy looking out the windows. The mirrors are on the opposite side. When we finished the tour, we asked a worker where the Hall of Mirrors was because we had missed it. She was amazed. "are you sure you didn't see it??" Then we looked through our pictures and realized that we actually did see it but didn't know that is what it was. ha ha!

This is where the queen slept.

Then we went outside and looked at some of the many gardens.

I loved seeing all the colorful flowers because there wasn't much greenery or flowers in Paris.

These gardens looked pretty cool from above.

And this was a giant mirror thing outside that was supposedly "art". I liked it because we could take a picture of ourselves with the whole palace in the background. THere was also more "art" down by the canal that was just a whirlpool in the ground. We asked a worker what is was thinking that maybe it powered all of the fountains (which non of them were on, by the way :( ) but no. He just said that is was art. Weird. I guess I don't appreciate the arts. ha ha

After spending a couple hours walking around in the gardens and eating lunch there, we decided we were done and headed back to Paris where we went to the hotel and rested our feet for a minute. Then we decided that we would walk down to the Louvre and get that checked off of our list. I wasn't sure I was going to like it much because I just thought there would be so much stuff and I didn't know where to go. I had heard stories of people spending like 4 hours there, and I didn't want to do that! So we brought Laurel's Rick Steve's book and followed his tour in his book and it ended up being awesome. It took us to a lot of the popular things that we wanted to see and gave us some information about the art. It really was the perfect tour for both of us. It only took an hour or so.

Here I am outside. The famous pyramid entrance.

This famous statue that I don't remember the name of was one of the first things we saw.

These crowns and jewels were quite impressive.

Sorry about the nudity, but it was everywhere! ha ha. Lots of statues and paintings of naked people.

Then we made it to the Mona Lisa. We had heard that if you want to get to the front of the crowd, nobody would just let you in out of kindness. You had to push and shove your way to the front. Neither Laurel or I are super pushy, so at first we just got near the front and took a picture. That Asian gal was in all of my pictures trying to get a perfect selfie. ha ha. Then we decided to go back and try to be brave and push our way to the front. And we did! Much better. There was a girl standing literally front and center for about 5 or more minutes taking selfie after selfie. When we got to the front, we snapped a picture and got out of there to give other people the opportunity. But this girl didn't care who was looking at her or how long she took, she was going to get about 100 pictures of herself with the Mona Lisa. Good for her.