Not the sunniest of days, but the view was still beautiful. We had lunch down by that lake and it took forever to run there!
Taken by a photographer who clearly didn't get that we were going for a landscape view of the grounds...
The Hall of Mirrors inside the Palace. I swear it's not the mirrors making it look this crowded.
One last look at the sparkling Eiffel Tower before departure
Trevor and I were saying this afternoon how different each day is from the previous, despite the fact that we're still just out exploring Paris. Today we ventured to Versailles for two reasons: the first was to visit the palace of Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette, and the second was to meet (literally for the first time) our cousin and his family. I'm not quite sure the cause of the crowds, as it is a Tuesday in February, but the palace was beyond crowded; so crowded in fact that some of its awe and glory was diminished. The rooms of the palace, as large as they are, felt reduced to the size of a dorm room for all that we could move around in them. The gardens and acres of land surrounding the palace however, were breathtaking (even without their spring bloom). Standing at the "back door" of the Palace for as far as the eye could see was palatial grounds; fountains, statues, lakes, gardens, pathways and forests lay before us. At one point while walking across the grounds, Trevor turned to me and said, I wish I could gallop like a horse; seriously though, it took a good 25 minutes to walk the length of the grounds. So great!
As I mentioned before, the other reason for coming to Versailles was to meet our cousin, whom neither of us had met before, for lunch. Our dad's whole family, as most of you know, is from England so other than my study abroad we have not made it over to England to meet everyone. We ate lunch at a restaurant right on the grounds of the Palace and the conversation flowed like we'd known each other for years. We started talking about genealogy and the origins of the Frimond family and our cousin who had done some research discovered that our name (and family) originated in Romania and was originally Friemund, meaning free world. How cool is that?! We're Romanian!! Anyway, we also talked about the usual stuff like work and the economy, but I figured our faithful readers would much prefer to know that they are friends/family with a couple of Romanian kids.
So there you go, not a bad last day in France. I guess we'll just have to go to Romania now and visit our ancestors. Ta ta for now.
1 comment:
You two are like the energizer bunny. It's such fun following your blog.
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