Destination: France & Italy
Duration: 15 Days 15 Nights (Sep 02~Sep 17, 2014)
Day 3: Chateau de Versailles, Arc de Triomphe &
Night Train to Milan
We would be taking an overnight train to Milan tonight
thus we checked out and left our luggage in the hotel before setting out for
our last adventure in Paris. We have another long day planned thus we simply
bought our breakfast from our favourite bakery on the way to Gare de Lyon
station. This time we bought the salmon sandwich and a type of mini pastry with
sugar on top. The salmon was really thick and fulfilling whilst the mini pastry
offered a light and sweet treat.
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| Let's see... What to eat for breakfast today... |
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| Salmon Sandwich and some sweet pastries... |
From Gare de Lyon, we took the RER A (Direction: Poissy)
to Chatelet Les Halles before transferring to take RER B (Direction: Massy
Palaiseau) to St Michel Notre Dame. Now that was where it got tricky, we needed
to take RER C to Gare de Versailles Chateau – Rive Gauche but apparently there
were several “C” line that we were not aware of at the time. There were C1, C2
& C3 but we simply jumped on a C train without considering it.
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| Sammy has his own seat |
That caused us to lose a lot of times since we thought Gare
de Versailles Chateau – Rive Gauche was supposed to be the last stop thus we
did not get off until the train got to the final stop and that was not Gare de
Versailles Chateau – Rive Gauche! We ended up riding back again and ended up in
Versailles Chantiers station instead.
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| Oh no!!!! |
Don’t panic if you reach Versailles Chantiers station
though – you can still reach the palace! It’s just a longer walk if compared to
Gare de Versailles Chateau – Rive Gauche station. There was a long queue at the
palace entrance as well but we were glad to have our Paris museum pass since we
skipped the line to buy entrance ticket. However, we still needed to queue for
security screening though.
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| Look at that restoration at the top... =( |
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| Here we are! |
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| Sammy was there! |
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| Long queue to enter! |
From entrance, we could see part of the building is in
restoration, this was one of the many times we encountered restoration in our
trip hence the title of this travel log – The Journey of Restoration. *sigh* The
restoration somehow tampered the outlook of the majestic palace but it still
looked amazing though.
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| Golden Gate Literally! |
The interior was doubtlessly luxurious beyond words – we got
to see a lot of chambers such as the king’s bedchamber, queen’s bedchamber and
the most celebrated room in the château of Versailles – the hall of mirrors.
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| Entering the foyer |
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| View of Garden from Palace |
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| I think this is the king's bedchamber? |
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| Hall of Mirror! |
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| Another Bedchamber! |
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| Queen's Bedchamber! |
After the palace, we went to take the train to ride along
the surrounding garden. We waited for quite some time as there was a long queue
as well. Gosh! Life is too short to be in queue! *groan* The gardens were all
maintained beautifully andI thought I was in a 16th or 17th
century period drama where the riches ride horses to ride though the huge
garden with impeccable view before entering their home. Gosh! Why would someone
need a garden as huge as this?!
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| At the Courtyard ready to explore the garden |
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| Let's take a train instead! Long queue again! |
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| Finally getting on the train |
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| I thought i was in a Period Drama - minus the golf cart! |
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| Imagine a handsome guy riding a horse across this impeccable garden in 17th century! |
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| A lookout to the gardens - Darn! A ramp is there! More restoration? |
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| The Palace from the Garden |
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| A Panoramic View |
There were more buildings and gardens which we never had
the chance to visit due to time constraint. We had to head back to Gare de
Versailles Chateau – Rive Gauche station to get back to Paris for our
destination. In fact, we had to skip Musée d'Orsay since it was getting late.
We headed straight to Arc de Triomphe with RER C
(Direction: Versailles Chantiers) to Champ de Mars – Tour Eiffel for a transfer
to M6 line from Bir-Hakeim Grenelle (Direction: Charles de Gaulle-Etoile) to Charles
de Gaulle-Etoile Station. We were starving so we bought pain au chocolat with
almond on top in a random stall at the metro. They tasted so delicious!!!
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| Random Pasties!!! |
Once we walked out of the station, the gigantic Arc de
Triomphe was right in front of us. However, there was also the Paris’ busiest
roundabout setting apart Arc de Triomphe and us. We were wondering how to get
to the monument and ended up noticing there was an underground tunnel.
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| Arc de Triomphe is in front of us - separated by 1000 cars i guess... |
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| Finally found the underground tunnel! |
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| Let's go! |
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| Finally underneath the monument! |
We got to the top of Arc de Triomphe by taking the stairs
again! Don’t ask me how many steps there were since I was too busy panting and
hyperventilating to count them! UGH!!! I hate stairs!!! We finally got to the
top and got a grand view of Paris where we could see Avenue des Champs-Élysées,
Place de la Concorde and Musée du Louvre as well as many other monuments. Guess
it was worth the effort. There was also some ceremony at Arc de Triomphe but we
had no idea what it was.
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| Spiral Steps to get to the top! *facepalm* |
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| Chairs halfway to rest! |
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| Miniature Arc de Triomphe |
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| Every Road in Paris is adorned by trees! |
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| I think that's the financial district with all the tall buildings? |
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| Eiffel Tower |
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| That's the barrier on Arc de Triomphe |
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| Avenue des Champ-Elysees, Place de la Concorde & Louvre from the top |
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| Basllique du Sacre Coeur |
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| Leaving Arc de Triomphe |
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| A Ceremony! |
We had to leave our last destination in our Paris visit
and headed back to Gare de Lyon to get our luggage and bought some dinner for
our night train to Milan. We bought some cheese & wine from Monop and
dessert from the bakery before dragging our luggage to Gare de Lyon station to
find our platform.
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| Some last minute souvenir shopping! |
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| Bye bye Dessert! |
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| Bye Bye Monop! |
Our train – TGV EuropNight 221 will be leaving at 7.59pm and
arriving in Milan the next day at 6am. We booked our tickets 2 months ago from
RailEurope (link)
for EUR35 per pax. Be sure to get to the train station early to find your coach
as it might be a long walk from the head of the train to your coach! We were in
Coach 88 and it was a long walk!
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| Platform L!!!! |
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| Coach 88! |
We were in a 6pax cabin where we could convert the seat
into bed. There would be 3 levels bunk bed once everything was converted. They even provided you with bed cover, blanket & pillow. We
were in the same cabin with a family (3pax) and another man and they were all
very courteous. We ate our dinner of cheese & wine before converting our
seat into bed and slept through the night.
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| Here we are in our cabin! |
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| The Walkway outside cabin |
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| Our Dinner!!! |
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| Look at the Cheese!!! |
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| Pillow, Bed cover & Blanket are provided |
One thing to highlight – the train ride could be quite
bumpy thus it was best to sleep through the night. A walk to the toilet set me
into motion sickness due to the train movement. Also, you might not want to use
the toilet that much as it might not be the cleanliest toilet you would wish
for since it was shared with the whole coach. Also, the conductor would take your passport
and returned it to you 30minutes before reaching Milan. Thus this ended our
adventure in Paris as we headed south to our next destination – Italy!!!
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| Tiny Toilet |
Next Day (Milan & onwards to Vernazza - the Gem of Cinque Terre)
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