Europe // France: Chåteau de Versaille and le Tour Eiffel!

 Oh my word. This place. It is so overwhelmingly huge and beautiful! I remember my first impressions of it as we were making our mad dash (we were running late for our tour due to all sorts of confusion at the train station about buying our train tickets and such!) up the Avenue de Paris toward it. It looked like its own little city spread wide in front of us off in the distance! It was so huge!

 Despite getting on a later train that we had planned for, the train ride was so nice. First European train ride! Woo! It was relatively empty and nice and quiet. All the little towns we passed were so cute. My eyes were glued out the window the whole time. 

 Ryan suggested that we pay for the tour of the parts of the palace not open to the public, since that was what his family had done when he first saw Versailles. I'm glad we did. Our tour guide was great at his job and told us some of the coolest things about the history of each room. My mouth was probably hanging open for most of the tour. Over and over again Ryan and I would just look at each other and say, "Can you imagine living here?!?!" All the rooms were unbelievable. It was so fun to again see something in person that I had learned so much about in high school.

 The highlight of the tour for me - The royal opera! Oh my awesome. Absolutely breath-taking! And thanks to the incredible camera I had on this trip (my Dad's RX10), the enormous sensor and huge aperture meant I didn't have to ever use the flash. I smugly shot away as my fellow tour-mates struggled to get shots in the low light without a tripod. Thank you, Dad!

When our tour finished, we headed out into the gardens. Ahh!! They were so beautiful! We just walked around for about an hour among the serious maze of paths, hedges, ponds, and fountains, and then found a pretty place to eat the lunch we packed.

If I were a French princess at Versailles I would spend all day every day riding my French horse all over these French gardens because as far as I'm concerned that would be French heaven.

I wish a was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller...

 ^^ Kind of made me think of Pride & Prejudice... *sigh* [:

 Then we headed back around front to see what we had been in too much of a rush to see before - that gorgeous golden front gate. Holy drool-worthy.

 Oh my goodness. I just love all that GOLD. It was everywhere, trimming every surface of this palace. Our tour guide had told us that they had just recently re-done all of the gold in the entire chateaux and you could tell. It was so beautiful with the pink brick and light stone.

 Then it was back inside to see the parts of the palace that the self-guided tour covered! Like this gorgeous chapel. ^^

 These tall windows with views into the gardens... Just so, so pretty!

Of course we had to see the Hall of Mirrors. If I were back to being a French princess at Versailles, I would probably also demand in snobby-princess-French that this be my room.

 ^^ Unintentional Hall of Mirrors selfie within a selfie.

 We decided not to do the Petit Trionon and Marie Antoinette's hamlet because, let's face it, we were Versailles-ed out. So it was au revior, Versailles. You were beautiful and I can kinda see why the whole French Revolution thing occurred with the type of lifestyle you were associated with. [:

 We walked much slower on the way back to the train station than we had earlier that morning [; and took a few quiet side streets with houses I couldn't even guess the age of and private, perfect little gardens like this. ^^

Then we stopped at a boulangerie and got a baguette and our first batch of macarons for a snack on the train ride home. To be honest, I initially was quite weirded out by macarons in my research of French food because I thought they looked like tiny hamburgers, plus a lot of the flavors sounded so weird. But I knew I had to try them, so we got them and it was a GOOD CHOICE. Holy yummo. Lemon, pistachio, coffee, chocolate, strawberry, vanilla... Oh my goodness. We ate every last one. I officially love macarons and I'm happy to report that they don't taste like tiny hamburgers. [; 

We were WORN OUT after all the Versailles-ness and once we got home we crashed for a little bit to recuperate. This was our second to last day in Paris, though, so after an appropriate period of rest I dragged Ryan back out the door to give Paris' most famous landmark proper attention.

We walked all over the Champs de Mars and I took a lifetime supply of photographs of that beautiful tower.

One of my regrets is not asking someone to take a picture of us in front of the tower. To be honest, there were so many shady people that I was a little scared to hand over my camera to anyone, but I know there were plenty of tourists like us that I could have trusted. Ah well. Selfies will have to do till next time. [:

 Then we picked a direction (this started to become one of my favorite parts of each day [: ) to head in and find a place to eat dinner. We picked Corso, an Italian cafe and it did not disappoint! Really we didn't have a single plate of bad food in Paris... Every place we went to was awesome. It was so great!!

Note: I am not a fan of pop at all. I think it's yucky tasting! However, Ryan made me taste the pop over there and I was amazed at how much it didn't taste like cough medicine! Go Europe!

 This. pasta. blew. my. mind. It tasted so fresh!

 Then it was back to Trocadero Square for some lit-up Eiffel Tower lovin.

 Of course we had to stay and watch it sparkle on the hour. It was so romantic. [:

Then back on the metro and back home. We tried not to think about the fact that going to sleep would mean the next time we woke up would be our last full day in Paris, but I was so excited to get back to Amsterdam. But Paris, of course, was so lovely too, and I loved this day of adventures with Ryan.