Chateaux Galore!

Another beautiful day at the Jardin du Luxembourg! This amazing fall weather impresses on me on the daily.


Last weekend, my friend Ashton from UW who's living in Spain right now came to visit! We went to Versailles for the day on Saturday and visited the chateau, garden, and surrounding area. We had to take the RER, the train that runs through/around Paris, to get there, and since the transportation workers are on strike we had some issues! The train stopped three stops from the end of the line and the conductor came on the loudspeaker and told us this was the last stop and everyone would have to get off here. Luckily, we were able to follow the huge crowd of people that also had the same destination as us and walk the rest of the way to Versailles.

When we finally got there, there was a huge line that we were resigned to stand in since we'd come all the way. After we'd been waiting in line for about fifteen minutes and estimating we had another hour to go, we heard an announcement about students not needing tickets. Of course the announcement was in French so my translating was a little sketchy, but we decided to take our chances. We got out of the ticket line and headed to the entrance we thought was for students. When we approached the woman at the gate with our student cards at the ready, she told us we needed our passports with visas to prove that we were students in the EU. We turned to go back to the huge line, but apparently our sad American faces worked because she said, "OK, I didn't see you", and let us go in!





My favorite part of the gardens was a set of cottages that were built for Marie Antoinette. She wanted to have her own little village on the grounds of Versailles, and there are ten cottages still standing. This was my fave!








We rented a rowboat and rowed around the Grand Canal!

On Saturday, our group took a day trip to the Loire Valley, about 3 hours south of Paris. We went to Chateau Chenonceau, one of the most famous in the area.








We also went to Leonardo de Vinci's house which was pretty amazing! Sadly some of the rooms were closed for renovation, but we still got to see a lot.






The Louvre has been scamming us!