Fit for a King

Saturday, July 5: Our final bicycle ride was an all-day tour of the palace and grounds of Versailles. Led once more by Fat Tire Bicycle Tours, we picked up our bikes and our guide at their office in Paris early Saturday morning. We rode to the local RER station (regional rail line) and boarded a train with our bikes for a 20 minutes ride to Versailles. Upon reaching Versailles, we shopped for picnic lunches. We found a scrumptious bolangerie/patisserie and bought wonderful things to eat.

This was a really nice ride through the grounds of Versailles and then a visit to the grandest palace in Europe. Despite clouds and some drizzle in the morning, our plastic ponchos did the touch and kept us dry until the weather improved to partially cloudy.

We bicycled through the park to see Marie Antoinette’s Hamlet where she played at being a shepardess with sheep that she painted her favorite colors of pink and blue! At the Grand Trianon, a smaller palace, we marveled at the coordination of the color scheme in which the vibrant pinks of the flowers echoed the rose color of the stone. Also impressive was the man-made Grand Canal (shown in photo above.) Louis XIV liked to impress his court by staging mock naval battles on it. Then on to the magnificent palace of Versailles, which has been painstakingly restored. The audioguide tour filled in many details of life at the palace, such as that the 19 children born of 3 queens were all public events so that people would know they were true heirs!


Both the extraordinary scale of the gardens combined with the grandeur of the palace made this a day to remember.
- Bonnie Hayes and Sue Gettlin

Shown above: Group listening to tour guide on road into Versailles; Brittany McCall and Megan Thrash enjoying lunch at the Grand Trianon; View of Grand Canal from Palace; View of Palace from Apollo Fountain; Sue Gettlin in the Hall of Mirrors.

All that Jazz
After a very enjoyable bike ride to Versailles, three of us went to a jazz restaurant with live music—Le Sherwood Piano Bar on Rue Daunou. If you enjoy a small, laid-back lounge, I recommend going here. We talked for hours while a singer sand jazz and soul songs in English, along with a pianist. The servers speak English and are very friendly. I highly recommend a “chill” night here.
- Kajette Bloomfield

View the day's photos