Paris - Versailles - Eiffel Tower - Tue. - Oct.5

After breakfast we walked to a pharmacy to get our covid-antigen test.  We were told to come back in 20min. for the reports.  We passed!  Negative.  Yay!  We get to come home!

We put the reports away in our room and headed over to the Invalides Station for the RER train to Versailles.

We got on at the Invalides station, upper right, and traveled down to Versailles on the yellow 'C'.  We came back on the yellow 'C' and got off at the Champ de Mars station to see the Eiffel Tower.

Versailles is 12-miles Southwest of Paris.  Jan had researched the weather.   Slight rain until 2.   NOT!

Walking from the train station it started to rain harder and harder and then .. when we arrived at the large open courtyard .. it slammed into us with 30mph winds and torrential rain showers.

Many umbrellas were turned inside out.   Most of us were soaking wet.   Once inside everyone tried to shake most of the moisture off and find a way to hold on to soaking windbreakers and dripping umbrellas.

The Palace of Versailles is MASSIVE!  Home to several kings and their courts.   Built originally in 1623 as a hunting lodge.  Staggering data such as :  700 rooms,

1976 acres of land including the massive gardens with 400 sculptures and 50 large fountains are but a few of the items that took 36,000 workers to build.

Here's some restoration work being done today :

Some pics from the opulent rooms and spaces :

This is the coronation room :

The Hall of Mirrors was built in 1681 by Venetian glass craftsmen.  357 mirrors!

Lavish, lavish, lavish ..no wonder they had a revolution!

A large hall with battle scenes and busts of generals :

We peeked out of several windows at the gardens :

See all that standing water?    wet .. wet .. wet

By this time, the rain had stopped (for now) and the line was extremely long.

We headed back towards the train station stopping for a late lunch of French onion soup and a burger to warm up.   Then over to the Rive Gauche station for a train.

The skies started to lighten up and spots of blue appeared.  Here's a pic looking across the Seine to the West after we got off at Champ de Mars station :

The Eiffel Tower made its presence known !

Closer and closer and closer we approached :

A competition for the world's fair, it took only 2yrs, 2mon, and 5days, finished in 1889!  

It has .. 2,500,000 rivets!   As we walked eastward towards our hotel along the green space, the heavens and storms opened up again and torrents of rain scattered hundreds of tourists and students.  I should've noticed the fast moving cumulus clouds!

An interesting day.  I guess the thunderstorm made me pause and think about how extravagant the French kings and Napoleon and the government spent the treasury on this grandiose palace and let their people starve.

But I can really celebrate the technical achievement and engineering skills that had French engineers design and build this tower, the Suez Canal and start the Panama Canal.  

Time to pack and prepare for a long travel day from Charles de Gaulle airport to Iceland to Seattle then to Portland!   What a trip we had!   I'll compose one more post with a few travel pics and some final thoughts.

Take care.