FARQUE MEEE!
This was my battle cry today. After every corner turned, looking up at every ceiling, wandering through every garden, the response was similar, said in my broadest Australian accent.
Farque me!
Have you been to Versailles? Hunting lodge my arse! It's so over the top, you get an idea why the peasants went into revolt. It makes the Catholic Church look restrained - okay maybe only a little.
This place is utterly overwhelming. It assaults the senses, tickles your fancies and certainly makes you question absolute rulers.
But I'm very glad I went on our visit today
First up, for the company. Fee and I left Paris around 9.30 a.m. making our way out to this small town on the outskirts of Paris. Fee and I live just across the river from each other in Melbourne. We tend to see things about the same. And we worked out we do Museums and Gardens at about the same pace. I couldn't ask for a better person with whom to share this adventure. And there were a few missteps on getting there, probably down to your minor misunderstandings of the instructions, but we're on holiday time, so it didn't matter. (Again, we thought the same about this too... no stress or drama).
And the day was perfect. Sunny, not to hot. A few clouds, but nothing to worry about.
The thing is, once we got out there, we were blown away by the actual size and intricacies of this super-sized back yard.
Farque mee!
We wandered around the gardens for a couple of hours, grabbing some lunch at the outdoor cafeteria taking in this incredible landscape. The fountains, the mazes, the long terraces. Absolutely incredible.
We then ambled down to the big statue of Louis XIV to meet our guide to see inside the palace. Steph has been a common feature on many a Gunnas tour. She's the tour guide you want to get. A font of strange, obscure and wonderous knowledge, both intelligent and irreverent, who makes your tour fun. I love this woman. (She took us through the Musee D'Orsay on the tour and was informative and hilarious in equal measure). We saw opulence that no one person should be able to accumulation. And yes, some parallels were drawn from current situations.
I've never seen anything like it.
Also remember that the French Revolution meant that a lot of the antiquities were taken out, sold off, melted down and destroyed - but it's been rebuilt for the public's enjoyment - at a cost of 30 Euros to see the Chateau and an extra 11 Euros to walk around the gardens.
My only criticism is that like most tourist places, it is oversubscribed and too busy - are too many people are crammed into the place. (The Musee D'Orsay was awful). You can't really take in these places in comfort, which is a pity. The gardens were fine, and very enjoyable, but in the three hours we were walking around, we only saw a fraction of the place. Water restrictions meant that many of the fountains weren't flowing. And we found out that for the next six months, the gardens are closed to the public, so we timed that well.
Fee and I left the area around 5.30 p.m. very happy and utterly spent.
I was 20000 steps in when I hit Republique, where I went and found some dinner. A local Bouillon, with a takeout service gave me a Menu Formule - Boiled Eggs with Mayonnaise, Quiche and salad, and a Creme Caramel for 20 Euro. Possibly the healthiest things I've eaten in a while.
After this, I flopped into bed.
It was a marvelous day.
But farque mee....
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