Paris - Day 4: The Palace of Versailles, Sacre Coeur and Montmartre

The sun came out for our trip out to the French countryside area of Versailles. It took us awhile to navigate the metro, train, and bus system, but we did it and made it out to the Palace in about an hour. There are long lines to enter, even with timed entry, but everything went fairly smoothly. Versailles is set up to flow from one room to the next. Its opulence, much of which was furnished under the direction of Louis XIV is practically beyond imagination. Highlights included the Hall of Mirrors and the Queen’s Bedroom. After quite the tour through Versailles, we went out to the gardens. There are many smaller gardens sectioned off with tall hedges from each other between the Palace and the Grand Canal. Many of these had fountains, sculptures, topiaries, and unique plantings. There were a couple cute restaurants next to the Grand Canal and a spot to rent little row boats. We skipped that and headed to the Grand Trianon made of Pink Marble that was built by Louis XIV as a more intimate palace to receive friends and family. There is more to see at Versailles, but this was the end of our day there. It was nice for me to have some rest and James went out thrifting after we got back to Paris. For the evening, we took the Metro to the Montmartre neighborhood and visited the Sacre Coeur church / memorial to the soldiers who died in the Franco-Prussian War. It is located on one of the only hills in Paris and there was a fantastic view of the city from its steps. It had mass happening when we were there and they invited tourists in to walk around the edges of the church where there were mini chapels and candles burning. It felt odd. After that we walked down through the charming streets of that neighborhood and had an excellent Italian dinner in a tiny restaurant where we sat upstairs above the bar. Finally, we had to walk past Moulin Rouge before we left. To cap it all off, we went to Jeudi Night Fever - a disco dance party that night that had a great DJ. The only problem is that I was ready to go home and sleep just when Paris was waking up. LOL. 22,500 steps.