[Continued from previous post]
Sunday morning we woke up early to go to Versailles. Our plan was to get there right before they opened at 10:00am so we could get there before a huge line formed. We again stopped at Starbucks on the way to the metro and got to the last station where we had to switch strains to head to Versailles. As we were looking on the board to see what track the train we needed was, a worker asked us where we were going. We told him Versailles and then he said this train to Versailles is not running on weekends in October and that you have to go back this other way on a different train. Thankfully, they had directions printed out on paper for everyone, which was really nice. So basically that put us back a whole hour and we finally got to Versailles a little before 11:00am and the line was HUGE! I do not even want to explain how long this line was because first you have to wait in a line to get tickets ( I would recommend getting them online) and then you go wait in another line (the huge line) to get into the actual palace. We got inside and did the whole thing. It was again beautiful and just amazing how old these places are and that they are still intact today. I had a hard time staying focused and continuing to listen to the audio guides they gave us. There were just soooo many people and none of them know where they are walking and always pushing and shoving, which kind of makes for a lesser quality experience. The biggest thing that annoyed me is it was impossible to get a decent picture of the “Hall of Mirrors” where the Treaty of Versailles was signed because it was packed full of people and their giant iPads taking pictures… After walking through the palace, we didn’t have time to see the gardens because Kailey needed to be back by 3:30pm to catch her train back to Germany and since we were all so hungry, we decided to have lunch in Versailles. I had this huge plate of pasta with a cheese sauce and ham. It was very tasty. Then we walked back to the train station and headed back to Paris.
One of the things we all wanted to try before we left were macarons. Unfortunately the place down the street from our apartment had some in the window and we thought we could get them on Sunday. It turned out they were closed, but McDonalds sells macarons in Paris. So Kailey really wanted to try them and I don’t blame her, so we stopped at McDonalds to try them. Let me just say from experience don’t have McDonalds macarons be your first experience with macarons. 😉 They were not horrible, but the ones we bought at an actual like bakery were 100 times better!
The rest of Sunday night we just relaxed in the apartment and went to bed early since we had to be up by 5:00am to get to the bus stop to go to Mont Saint Michel in the morning.
Monday was a long day, but in the end I’d say it was worth it. We woke up around 5:30am and struggled to get ready. 😉 We left the apartment and headed to the metro to go catch the bus to Mont Saint Michel at around 6:20am. We made it there with time to spare. Amber booked our tour, so she checked us in, while Courtney and I tried to find a coffee shop open that early. There ended up being a ‘brasserie’ open across the street that had coffee and croissants. I can tell you I have never had a fresher croissant than that one. It was still warm and fresh out of the oven. It was almond and so delicious.
Back at the tour guide place, that I can’t remember the name of, we waited around until about 7:15pm for the bus to arrive. At this point, I was not sure how to feel about to get on this bus with all these tourists – mainly obnoxious Americans. No wonder we get a bad rap; it’s because of people like these… more on that later. 😉
Anyways, the bus ride was approximately 4 hours there and we made one stop at a “tuck stop.” Mont Saint Michel is located off the coast of Normandy. [more information on what it actually is, look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Saint-Michel] I slept for about the first 2 hours on the bus and then the second half stayed awake because our guide started talking about the Normandy area, which I found very interesting. Also, I loved just staring out the window at the French countryside. It’s beautiful. We finally got to Mont Saint Michel at around noon. This guided tour included lunch so we had lunch at this place called Relais Saint-Michel. We were brought into this huge banquet room with many tables that were labeled for different tour guide companies. Right away at the table were croissants and cider from Normandy. Back to the obnoxious American, this lady who I’d say was in her early 60’s looked like she looks like an old Sandy from the movie Grease with quite the wild hair and an annoying high-pitched southern Texas drawl. The first thing she said to the waiter was, “I need some butter for this bread, (they were croissants) and I mean like a lot, like a pound of butter.” The waiter just stared at her for a minute contemplating if she was even being serious; he later brought her the butter.
Within about 10 minutes we were served our first course. It was a “Mère Poulard” omelet. It was very different and I couldn’t decide if I liked it or not, but here is a link about the history of this omelet. [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omelette_de_la_m%C3%A8re_Poulard] (might need to use google translate 😉 ) The second course was salmon, rice and vegetables which was very good. I never thought I liked salmon or any non-crustacean type fish until I came to Norway. Then for dessert we had this Normandy apple pie. It was definitely not like an American apple pie, it actually reminded me of kuchen because the filling was a bit custardy. I thought it was good!
After lunch we hopped on the shuttle to take us to the actual Mont Saint Michel, which is basically this huge rock with an abbey built on top and adjoined by a super tiny town with a population of about 24.
Before heading to the abbey, our guide warned us about the long, many stairs to the top to enter the abbey, I was a bit worried. I had like the “Stairs of Death” from my 6th grade Wolf Ridge field trip pictured. All you Grand Forks kids will get that reference. 😉 The walk up was really nothing, and maybe she has to make it seem worse since it’s usually a lot of older people on the tour?? 😉 The only downside about the tour is you have to wait for everyone to get to the top before continuing on. Thankfully, our group made it up fairly fast and we started the tour. The guided tour was actually really nice. I don’t think I would have enjoyed the abbey without the guide. She gave us a lot of history and information that made the place a lot cooler. After the tour, we were able to walk around the “city” of Mont Saint Michel and by city I mean basically the one street with stores along it since the population is about 24. On the way back to the shuttle bus we got caught in a windy pouring rain storm for about 5 minutes. Then it cleared up and there was a perfect complete double rainbow right near the island. It was almost unreal looking. That for me, made up for getting caught in the rain. J We got back to Paris around 10:00pm and went straight to the apartment and to bed.
Tuesday morning, we got up early to go to the train station to see if Amber and Courtney could get train tickets back to Bilbao since they wanted to have the whole day in Paris and they did not want to fly back on RyanAir. After being unsuccessful at that train station, we were sent to this other one, but was told to just get right on this bus and it will take us there. Yeah, we spent about an hour trying to find this bus stop because we were told different things each time the bus that we thought we were supposed to get one came. Finally, after wasting our morning, they got everything figured out and we were able to go get lunch and then have our favorite Berthillon ice cream once more! 😀 We also did a bit of last minute Paris shopping, got real macarons (oh they were delicious) and then I headed on the metro to the airport and back to Oslo. ♥
I had such a wonderful time in Paris and could have spent another week there, but as my time here in Oslo is winding down, I was ready to come back. This last month and a half is going to fly by. Counting it, I only have 30 days that will be spent in Oslo. The other 12 or so days will be spent between Bergen, Spain, and Tromsø.
I hope my Paris blogs weren’t too long or boring and that they were enjoyable to read.
-Hannah
Sounds awesome! Not boring! 🙂