Versailles and goodbye

Day 15 - May 25

Last day in Paris. We ride the train out to Versailles, along with every other tourist in France. We were packed on that railcar like le sardines. How fun it is to be too short for the handrail, requiring an intense focus on maintaining a vertical pose. Every shudder of that train was a challenge to not topple over like a bowling pin and set off some human domino effect. Yay, I remained upright for 30 mins...silently very proud of myself. Off the train and we head to the palace, following the crowd like cattle.

It is unreal how many people visit this place, even without the fountains on. Of course, we were still under the curse of no fountains and it held true. At our arrival, a few fountains were on, but just as we got a closer look, the sprays of l'eau went down, down, down and off. We just missed the morning show for the fountains, and the next show was longer than any of us wanted to wait. A quick walk around the hedges, over the pea gravel, and through le peeps, back into town for lunch and then the train ride back to Paree. Not so crowded on the way back...I guess everyone else stayed for the next fountain show. We bailed. Versailles still doesn't impress me, just like last year.

The afternoon was free for us to do whatever, so I checked off my souvenir list for the folks. The evening was reserved for our farewell group dinner. We walked from the hotel to an incredible restaurant a few blocks away. You would never know it from the outside, but the food here was a delectable experience. We ate, and ate, and ate. So, so, so good. I think we were there for 3 hours or so, not sure. Good thing I could walk off some of that goodness on the mini trek back to the hotel. But to really walk that meal off, I'd have had to hike to Eiffel and back several times. I just called it a day. A good day.