Shoulda Skipped the Chateau

We only spent two nights in Paris and then we headed off to Normandy, otherwise known as the only part of France Jared is excited to visit. After our day exploring the city, we slept as well as we could in our tiny little travel trailer before heading out the next morning to spend the next five nights in a different tiny trailer in Normandy. 

We decided to stop along the way at the Palace of Versailles. Versailles is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and we always love those so it seemed like an easy one to check off our list. Well, for the first time, a UNESCO Site was a letdown. Yes, I'm going to complain about visiting Versailles, something that we were blessed to be able to do and I fully understand that many, many people would love to have the opportunities we've been given. 


It all started with an email from the palace informing us that we'd booked tickets to the Palace on a day that was expected to be extra busy along with some suggestions for what we could do to make the most of our visit. I'll just jump in here and say that I am not a people/crowds person. I love the people I love and the other 7 billion humans on this earth make me uncomfortable, especially when lots of them are assembled in one place at one time. The promise of record numbers of people going to the same place as we were didn't make me happy, but we'd prepaid for our tickets so off we went. We followed the advice we were given and arrived early but still waited in line for almost two hours to even enter the palace. 

Outside of the beautiful golden gates is a large cobblestoned courtyard and in that courtyard was what seemed like every tourist in all of France waiting in the line that snaked back and forth through the courtyard and up to the entrance doors. We made the most of our time in line by daring the girls to sing, to show us (and the rest of the crowd) their best dance moves, or to talk to strangers - we learned that the younger you are the more likely it is that strangers will talk to you and not just look at you like you're crazy.

We did eventually make it to the entrance and behind that beautiful golden gate. "Too many people" does not really do justice to the crowds that were there that day. We were basically part of one big mass of humanity that slowly moved from one lavishly decorated room to the next. The crowd sort of swallowed us up and swept us along with them so there was no way to stop and no chance to really appreciate the ornate beauty that Versailles is famous for. I gave up on trying to make it to the red velvet ropes separating the masses from the things we were actually there to see. There were plenty of people willing to push and shove their way through the crowds, but I wasn't one of them. The few photos I did take were of the ceilings or of the backs of the heads of the people in front of us. So here's to the ceilings of Versailles, which are actually pretty amazing!

Look at that ceiling!
We were NOT having fun but at least the Hall of Mirrors was large enough that we could stop moving for a hot second
The best way to relax from the stressful and kind of exhausting experience we had in the chateau was to visit the sprawling gardens behind the chateau. The gardens are massive so it felt as if we'd gained back our personal space. We spent more time in the gardens than in the chateau and I think that's probably the only way to make a visit worthwhile. So here's our pro tip for anyone considering visiting Versailles - skip the chateau and just enjoy the gardens. Or if you absolutely can't live without enormous crowds, enormous mirrors, and enormous amounts of gold leaf on every surface go visit the gardens first and then tour the chateau in the afternoon when the crowds might be smaller.


Almost 2000 acres of perfectly designed and maintained gardens, complete with peaceful hidden groves, musical fountains, sculptures, and more to see than our family could possibly cover in one afternoon? Sounds perfect to me! We tried to see all the musical fountain shows and in between those we just wandered around exploring the pathways and little secret gardens that are scattered throughout the grounds. It was a such a big contrast to our time inside the chateau and totally redeemed our Versailles experience. So there you go, for an enjoyable time at Versailles, skip the chateau and tour the gardens instead. 



See how much happier we are outside in the gardens?

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