Day 4

Sunday dawned cold, 45 degrees and a bit windy. We were bidding Paris adieu. Our hearty group mounted the coach with trusty Hamid at the wheel, and headed for the Palace of Versailles, about 25 miles southwest of Paris.

The Palace began as a hunting lodge which Louis XIII appropriated from a nobleman. Louis XIV transformed it into a palace and moved his entire court there in the late 1600s. It was and is a place of great oplulence. Louis felt that he was a great leader and needed a palace which reflected his greatness. He got one.

We arrived in the town of Versailles in half an hour, collected our audio guides and entered the palace. The tour takes you through the U-shaped palace and gives you a description of each room through the voice of Louis XIV as well of voices of people of the late 18th century, the time of Louis XVI, the grandson, at the time of the great revolution.

It gets a little confusing as there is quite a bit of information presented about rooms which contain very little furniture. Most of the furnishings were either looted during the revolution or put up for sale to fund the government of the first republic. I am not sure how many of our group actually followed the guide through to the end.

There is a frustrating thing about Versailles: That is that there are lots and lots of people who visit there on any given day, especially on Sunday, and few of those people are French. Most of them come from cultures which have little regard for personal space. Therefore, there is much pushing and shoving as you go through the palace. It can be very frustration for Americans and it was for our group. It can be very difficult to hold your tongue when people are behaving in a way that would be considered rude and selfish in America, even thoug you tell yourself it is not so for them.

That is why the French very rarely visit Versailles. In warm weather, they pay the admittance fee for the grounds becaus it is a great place for a picnic or just to spend a warm afternoon. But visit the interior? Rarely.

We toured the grounds a bit, then Michael took us to a quiet part of the gardens and helped us to understand the dynamics of the French Revolution through gesture and activity. I don't know if the students enjoyed it as much as the adults watching did.

We then got back aboard the bus and headed for the town of Chartres. Chartres is historically a pilgrim destination. The current cathedral there dates from 1130 AD. It encompasses both the Romanesque and Gothic styles of architecture. The stained glass windows tell the stories of the bible in great detail.

Before the visit, we were to have lunch since we did not arrive until 1:30 pm. The large group split up so as not to overwhelm any one restaurant. We chose a very nice one, however we neglected to consider the French approach to the Sunday mid-day meal. They like to take their time and enjoy each course.

We did enjoy our meal; ham and cheese panini sandwhiches, chicken panini, pizza and crèpes being among our selections. However we took almost half and hour longer than our allotted time, thus we missed about half of the cathedral visit. No one seemed upset over that  except me, and I have been there. I think our group is becoming French, in that a good meal takes precedence to all.

We boarded the bus again and headed for the Loire Valley and Tours, France. Tours is a lovely city of about 50,000. It is old but well kept and quite clean. We stayed in the Hotel Kyriad, a mix of modern and old. A restaurant just down the street called 5G opened especially for us, as they are normally closed on Sunday. The students were a bit surprised by the opening dish, a tarteflette aux légumes. That is basically finely diced vegetables in a tomato gelatin. The main dish was salmon over pasta and the dessert was flan. I think it was a hit with everyone.

After dinner many of the large group took a walk down the main street, the national road, toward the river. Of course, we peeled off for a coffee and an ice cream.

It was great to crawl under the sheets after another great day in France.