Day 8 - Paris & Versailles

Half-Marathon Walking!

  Thursday, July 2nd was brutal on our bodies! We walked and walked, just over 13 miles by day's end with temperatures in the 90s. (It had been 102 the day before at The Louvre!)

   Our first destination was the palace at Versailles. We toured the jaw-dropping, opulent home to Louis XIV, XV, XVI, and the famous Marie Antoinette. After visiting the interior rooms, such as the Hall of Mirrors and King's and Queen's separate bed chambers, we spent a little time exploring the massive garden which is also divided into "rooms." We purchased lunch at kiosks in the garden, then relaxed and played on the grass before continuing our tour.
  After lunch we walked a long distance to visit more sites. We toured a smaller palace on the grounds which was regarded as the "simplistic" country home to the French royalty, yet still quite fancy. We also toured two homes dedicated to Marie Antoinette. She had her own small palace in which the stair rails were adorned with her own personal symbol, the letters M and A stacked on each other. Her "playhouse" was also part of our tour. This is where she pretended to be a peasant, played with her children and enjoyed the simple life with farm animals.
  The walk back to the main entrance of Versailles and to the train station was extremely long! It really impressed upon us the vastness of the Palace garden, because we only visited one quarter of it, if that!

The showy gold gates, adorned with the Sun King's (Louis XIV) emblem in front of the Palace at Versailles.

SLOCA students and parents toured many lavish rooms of the palace.

The long, sparkling Hall of Mirrors

Queen Marie Antoinette's bedroom in the palace.

Some Modern Art on display in the garden of the palace reverses the reflection of our SLOCA group.

Competition was hot in a game of hacky sack catch with Mr. Stavros in the palace garden.

Students Sandy and Fiona created their own gymnast art in the palace garden. The Palace at Versailles is in the distance.

Lucy and Sandy in front of Marie Antoinette's peasant "play house" on a far corner of the Versailles Palace grounds.

   Following the one-hour train ride back to Paris, we visited the Notre Dame Cathedral where we were allowed to enter during the evening Vespers service.

   Our long day didn't stop here... We returned to our hostel for dinner and then headed out again.

The dining room of our hostel in Paris was in the basement of an old building, an old cellar ceiling.

SLOCA student travelers after dinner at our hostel in Paris.

We had an evening river cruise down the Seine, admiring ornate bridges and lovely architecture along the river.  This photo was taken around 10:00 p.m., still plenty of light on a Paris summer night.

Finally, we capped the day with a ride up to the second floor of the Eiffel Tower.  In the year 2000 sparkling lights were added to the tower. The sparkling takes place a few times each night.  We were on the tower at 11:00 p.m. for the sparkling display that night.

Going up the Eiffel Tower in an old elevator

A View of the River Seine and The Arc de Triomphe from the Eiffel Tower