PARIS, JOUR TROIS

Wednesday.  Day three.  Paris.

My roomies and I were pretty exhausted after our full day before, so we rolled out of bed for breakfast and then got ready to go afterwards.  Ginny, Caroline, and I then hopped on the metro and then RER train to spend the afternoon at Versailles. 

Versailles

It was my second time at Versailles, and it was fun to go back and see it again.  Even though I’d seen it before, the hugeness of the château and the gardens never ceases to impress.  You really can’t get more over the top than Versailles.

Galerie de Glace aka Hall of Mirrors

Murakami art

Our feelings about modern art in Versailles

The French are into juxtaposing modern art and historical sites, so there were sculptures by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami throughout Versailles.  It’s an interesting idea to bring modernity into the 19^th century, but I was not a huge fan of the art.  Murakami’s art is really kitschy and cartoon-like, and I just couldn’t find any sort of connection between Versailles and the modern art.  Ginny is an art history major, so she has more insight than me, and she was struggling with the concept too.  It was definitely interesting, but I felt like it was kind of unnecessary.

Gardens at Versailles

By far the best part of Versailles is Marie-Antoinette’s hamlet.  We walked through the gardens and grabbed sandwiches and then continued walking to the hamlet.  After spending even a couple of hours in the château, it’s completely understandable why Marie-Antoinette would need to escape sometimes.  She would go to her little village and pretend to be a normal person, and if I were her, I’d probably just hang out there all the time.

l'Hameau de Marie-Antoinette

After the hamlet, we headed back to the train station so we could make it back to our hotel in time to walk to the play we saw that night.  The whole group went to see Ionesco’s play La Cantatrice Chauve at a tiny little theater in the Latin Quarter called Théâtre Huchette.  It’s a famous absurdist play, and luckily I had read the play in a class before, so I had some idea what was going on.  It was only an hour, which was nice, and afterwards, I went with a group of girls to meet my friend Brittany’s dad for dinner.  We ate a little restaurant in Place de Vosges where Victor Hugo’s house is.  It was so fun to have a nice, sophisticated dinner in a small group, and it was so generous of Brittany’s dad to take us out!  After dinner we were all pretty full, so we went back to the hotel to crash and psych ourselves up for a full day on Thursday.