DAY 9- Versailles, June 10th, 2014

Ah, Versailles! It sounds so nice and we all want to live there, strolling among the Gardens in our best strolling attire, admiring the statuary, the nymphs, the fountains, the occasional peacock, did I mention the nymphs? Drinking sherry......wait where is my sherry? Sacre bleau! where are the servants? why is it suddenly raining?

Actually, Versailles is highly over-rated. True, it's scale is impressive and the buildings are grand and I understand that there is all kinds of lavish and ornate stuff inside those buildings (15 € to stand in line to get into the Palace). 

We opt for the Gardens (9 €).

 
The problem with Versailles is that it is not "public", in that you have to travel a long ways from Paris and pay to get in....ok to visit but not a place to hang out at. I guess it was better in the 17th century with all those servants and gardeners.

Fun Fact:  Construction of the palace, based on existing records, cost 116,438,892 livres. This is equivalent to about $2 billion today. This massive cost does not include the cost of human lives, which was great.