We all woke up refreshed for our first full day in Paris. We started with a wonderful (though crazy expensive) breakfast buffet at the hotel before getting a taxi to drive us out to Versailles. We had our early admission tickets and jumped on in line for when they opened the doors.
We're all familiar with the famous Hall of Mirrors, and we know how incredibly crowded it can get. Ryan had studied up on this, and he learned a super helpful trick. We were in the first admission group, and while others took their time looking at everything on the recommended path, we headed a different direction and hightailed it directly over the Hall. You could see a few others doing the exact same thing. We knew we could come back to enjoy the parts we were skipping over right now. The hustle paid off big time. We arrived in the Hall with only a dozen or so others in there. It was as beautiful as I'd imagined, and we were able to get lots of great pictures without tons of people in them. We did double back later on in the day to see the other places we'd skipped. When we got back into the Hall, it was practically shoulder to shoulder with people. I'm so thankful Ryan knew what to do in advance!
After our initial Hall walk-through, we slowed down and enjoyed all the other beautiful areas inside the palace.
I couldn't get enough of the rich, velvet wallpapers that were all over the place!
After spending some time inside the palace, we headed out to the famous gardens. They had recently been used for several equestrian events in the Olympics just a couple of months ago.
A work associate gave me the tip that you can rent a little electric golf cart inside the gardens which then lets you go all over the grounds, much further than if you're trying to walk it, especially if you're only here for a few hours like we knew we were. This was a great idea! It got us all around, so we could see a ton of the beautiful gardens, fountains, and small cottages (really, little palaces) around the grounds.
We took some time to walk around one of the flower gardens once we returned the golf cart. There were lots of beautiful blooms growing here.
We were a little surprised to find a Laudree macaron store on the way out of Versaille, but we were quite happy to stop and purchase a box to sample!
As we left Versailles, we had the taxi driver drop us off at a special grocery store. We'd heard they were great for having specialty chocolates as well as butters that could be vacuum sealed to bring home. We had to try that! So we stopped there, picked up those items as well as some sandwiches for lunch, and went back to the hotel. We ate in our sitting room, and enjoyed the sandwiches as well as the macarons.
We passed the Arc de Triumph on our way back too; such a pretty day to see this monument.
Soon we headed over the Louvre. We started with our tickets into Napoleon's Apartments. This was really fun to see especially since we had been at Versailles earlier in the day. This place is amazing! I loved the furniture, the chandeliers, the massive dining room table, the velvet wallpaper, the artwork...all of it!
When set out to explore the rest of the museum after finishing up in the apartments. We can't bring the girls all the way to the Louvre and not see the most famous artwork there - Winged Victory, Venus de Milo, and the Mona Lisa.
There was all sorts of other beautiful artwork and jewels to admire too!
We were excited to have dinner at le Relasis de l'Entrecote tonight. Our cousin, Hamilton, told Ryan about it, and he warned him that it fills up and can have quite the wait. We decided to walk on over after the museum. We knew we'd get there about 40 minutes before they opened, so we took our time, but thought this made more sense than going back to the hotel. We're so glad we went ahead! There were probably 12 or so tables of people already waiting in front of us when we walked up. We wondered if a restaurant really would be worth the wait, but we decided to give it a try. Oh my goodness, yes, it was worth it! There's no food menu; it's a traditional steak and frites restaurant. This means they gave us a delicious salad with vinaigrette dressing and baguette to start. Then they bring around the steak and fries. It was so good! They just keep bringing more steak and fries when you start to run low. I think this was my favorite meal of the entire trip.
The huge plate of frites next to me just before they were served to another table!
While there's no dinner food menu, there is a dessert menu. I mean, come on, we're in Paris. Of course we're going to have dessert. Again, they were so good!
This is what the view down the street looked like when we left. The line for the restaurant was literally all the way down the street and around the corner. I'm not sure I'd be willing to wait in this long of a line (especially smelling the delicious steaks inside), but I might. It really was a delicious meal.
We wanted to catch the light show at the Eiffel Tower, so we had the taxi drive us over that way. We found some seats on the stairs and just had to wait a few minutes before the show started. It was so pretty! How fun to see this iconic landmark all lit up.
We headed back to the hotel from here to get a good night's sleep. We had a big day in front of us!
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