Versailles

Still no almond croissants at breakfast today, but there was a fabulous apple pastry, which I've already forgotten the name of.

Today's adventure was Versailles. We managed to make our way to an RER station via the Metro (a large chunk of the RER is closed this summer, including the station that would have been the most convenient).

Once we reached Versailles, we stopped at a Monoprix and picked up some food for a picnic. We ended up with a baguette, some Brie (Coeur de Lyon--it was very tasty), potato chips, chocolate/hazelnut cookies, cinnamon cookies, and sodas. Here we are picnicking:



The Chateau was amazing (like almost everything else we've seen this trip):








For some reason, John and Beth decided to photograph each other's nostrils in the gardens. Here's John taking his photo:



The result:



Since it's a weekend, the fountains in the gardens were running, with Baroque music playing in the background:






We also went to the Grand Trianon:





We lucked out when it was time to return to Paris. The gardens closed early today, at 5:30, because of some evening event, so when we left around 5:00, the streets were filled with people streaming towards the train station. We went through the turnstiles, and discovered a nearly empty train waiting for us, so we got on and settled ourselves into the comfy seats. The train filled up within minutes, with people standing in the aisles. We got to rest our feet on the way back to Paris.

I decided that since we had to get off the train, anyway, we might as well have dinner in the Rue Cler neighborhood before getting on the Metro. We settled on Cafe du Marche, another Rick Steves recommendation. As the review said, service was slow, but we had a delicious, reasonably priced dinner.



John had the grilled entrecote (steak) with sauteed potatoes and a green salad:



Beth had the chicken burger with fries (because she thought a cheeseburger was just too American):



Matt and I had the duck confit with sauteed potatoes and green salad:



After dinner, we returned home on the Metro, and had our daily Berthillon ice cream for dessert. I had cherry, John had cherry and chocolate, Beth had mango and pineapple, and Matt had praline and caramel.