Grand Paris

We did a guided tour of the city today. Then, we traveled out to Versailles for a tour of both the gardens and some of the castle. What a place! Versailles was built in 1661, and took 50 years to complete. This was the palace to Loius the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth. Eventually, at the start of the French Revolution, Loius the sixteenth, and his wife Marie Antoinette were captured and beheaded. The Versailles gardens are 2000 acres, one third of their original size! There is so much opulence, it was easy to see why the inhabitants of Paris and France who were starving might be disillusioned with their monarchy!

An example of how many of the ceilings of the rooms inside the castle were painted. There were 2000 rooms in the castle! 

Marie Antoinette's bed chamber.

An example of the walls, in winter, the walls would be covered in velvet, and in the summer, they would cover them in silk.

This is the famous "Hall of Mirrors". This is the locations of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles that ended the First World War.

The gold around the windows is real gold!

What a place!

After, there was a bit of time to wander around the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs- Élysées.

These are the beggars on the street, Muslim women who lie down face down on the very busy sidewalks with their McDonald's cup out front!!!