Category: Paris and Ile de France

Another day focused on driving. Today we covered about 380 kilometers in 6 hours. We made a couple of stops at rest areas. The first stop was to by some LP gas as we will be running the heater over the next few nights as temperatures are going to drop into the low 40’s.

I had to go inside and pay for the fuel and all of the staff in the large restaurant/ shop had on really creative and well done costumes for Halloween. I gave a cute witch my credit card to activate the pump. When I got out there a guy in a Dodge Ram pickup with New York plates on the front had pulled up behind me. I asked if he was from New York he looked confused and answered me in French. I pointed at the plates and he responded in very heavily accented English that it was a decoration.

The pump wouldn’t come on so I went back in and asked the Zombie behind the counter to activate the pump, she said she would. I went back out and the pump still wouldn’t come on. New York and I did some troubleshooting together but still couldn’t get the pump to come on. I was going to go back in when he volunteered to go in and explain the problem in French. After a few minutes the witch came back out with him and in about 10 seconds jiggled a couple of things on the pump and it started working.

Both New York and I looked ashamed-she gave us a look of pity which was reinforced by her witches costume as she headed back into the store. Ton wanted to know what all of the fuss was about and I told her, but I also explained about how good the costumes the staff were wearing were, so she was curious and wanted to go in. I parked François and we headed back into the store.

Ton was impressed by the costumes, but she was more impressed by the regional products on sale. After years of driving thru France and seeing regional products displayed, along with all of the other services like fuel, food, and rest rooms you expect in a rest area. She had never been inside to see what was on display in the stores. We ended up with a couple of regional candies and some socks she liked. Later on the drive we saw another rest area with regional products displayed and I asked if she wanted to stop and take a look, she said sure, and then laughed because she knew I didn’t expect her to say yes. This time we ended up with some mustard from the area.

We finally got to our campground around 2pm. I went for a reconnaissance to check on the best way to leave in the morning. The route we took in had a big do not enter sign on it, so I wanted to see where to go. I didn’t expect much and then I came around a corner and immediately turned back and got Ton.

France is full of picturesque villages. Grez-sur-Loing is one of them. It has a 19th century stone bridge, a 12th century fortified tower, and a 16th century church along side the Loing River. The setting is amazing and exudes calm and history.

When you add in fall colors and evening light it was a magical walk. What added to the magic was we had no idea it was less than 200 yards from where we were parked.

Experiences like this is what makes France magical for me. You never know when out of the blue you will fall into a place of calm and peace that makes you consider moving to some obscure place in a country where you can’t speak the language.

Today we turned south. With all of the repairs (fingers crossed) completed on François we are heading south. Our next stop is Sens to get our Control Technique done. We were tempted to try to make the leap but we have two major cities to navigate -Antwerp and Paris and I didn’t want to take them both on in one day.

The drive south was busy and Antwerp did not let us down as we were stuck in traffic there for 15 or 20 minutes. Most of the drive today was really busy from Delft until we hit the first toll way in France. Once again we drove across Belgium without stopping. Belgium deserves more love than we give it.

I picked a campground about an hour north of Paris and it is a charming place next to the Chateau in the picture. Sorel has a population of about 180 according to Wikipedia, but a nice campground and a pretty chateau.

We had a long discussion last night about what to do today. Initially there were two options, go into Paris or drive to Tours. Neither option appealed much to Ton though Tours is in out future as it is a stopping point on our way to Spain. After a lot of hemming and hawing we had not reached a decision when Ton saw that Fontainebleau was free today. So the decision was made and we were up bright and early for the 80 kilometer drive to Fontainebleau.

Ton had visited Fontainebleau during her student days in London and had very good memories of it. She had told me about it several times during our travels the last few years every time we blew by the exit for it on the A6 Autoroute. It had made a really strong impression on her then.

So we were up and off early for the 80 kilometer drive south from Paris. We made a quick stop in Samoreau a village close to Fontainebleau to make sure they had space for us in their campground, they did, so after checking in and doing a quick drive by of our assigned spot we headed over to Fontainebleau.

This is a very large Chateau, probably the third largest we have seen, Chambord, and Versailles were larger we think. There are over a thousand rooms and multiple wings to the place that make it difficult to capture just how immense it is.

The theme of the tour definitely is Napoleonic. The stories about all of the rooms talk about how Napoleon and his family used them. So I was a little surprised when I did some research to find that it had been a royal palace since the 1200’s, and the buildings we saw today were all in place when Napoleon occupied them.

Between 1200 and 1780 it was constantly added on to by various kings until it was transformed from a modest (relatively speaking) hunting lodge to the giant building we see today. Most of the construction took place between 1550 and 1780.

Unlike Versailles, Fontainebleau did not suffer any damage during the French Revolution as it was far enough away from Paris to miss out on the chaos that affected royal buildings in the capital. As it was intact Napoleon used it as his official palace when he declared himself emperor.

We spent a couple of hours working our way thru the palace and we missed one section of rooms. There was a lot to see and some of the art and furnishings were spectacular.

The grounds were quite large and included a very large man made lake. We were expecting more gardens, but there were no formal gardens. The grounds were effectively giant lawns with a few statues and a few trees.

At the end Ton told me she was a little disappointed. She remembers being awed by this place when she was a student. Today she was not awed, she was thinking that maybe because over the last few years we have visited so many different palaces and castles that they are losing their ability to wow her.

We headed back to our campground in Samoreau, and I was really charmed by it. The campground is on the banks of the Seine river and when we arrived they were having sailboat races. There is a small restaurant on the banks of the river that was doing booming business as a large percentage of the population of the town were enjoying the beautiful spring day with friends. I was clinched on the place when Ton casually mentioned that Django Reinhardt had lived here most of his life, he is one of my favorite jazz guitarists.

We took a quick stroll along the Seine to end a very nice spring day in France.

We had thoughts of going to Paris but on the way to the train station we ran into a market near the campground and spent some time looking around. It was a pretty small market, but the different vendors were busy. These markets are very common throughout Europe. Most towns have them a couple of times a week, and in bigger towns they are often daily. While the prices are slightly higher than the supermarkets they are well supported.

Across the street was a very popular bakery, that had a long line stretching out the door the whole time we were there. We were curious about the food inside, but were never able to get inside.

After spending about an hour walking around checking out the Saturday sites in our little corner of Versailles, Ton suggested we do laundry. So our trip to Paris was put aside and instead we headed back to the campground to knock out our laundry.

A couple hours later we had all fresh clothes, and Ton asked if I wanted to head into Paris. By then it was mid-afternoon so we decided to take it easy around the campground. I did walk over to the rugby field next to the campground and watched a game of high school aged kids, the home team was running away with the game at half time so I headed back to François to rejoin Ton.

As we do this longer, and as we get a little older, these down days where we hang around become a little more common. We are going to be busier tomorrow.

Today will be short. We were up early as we are shifting to Paris. It was a 300 kilometer drive, but it involved crossing Paris at mid-day. We had one stop in mind for the day which was one of the two Costco’s in Paris.

We arrived at Costco without any incident and went on a shopping spree to stock up with cool things we don’t see in our Costco at home and some old friends we do. François needs new tires and I was hoping they could do them here. We had everything worked out, I would buy the tires now, they would order them and then hold them for me until, we passed thru going north on our way back to Amsterdam then they would install them. Just as we were to seal the deal I mentioned that François was 3 meters tall and everything collapsed, their doors can only accommodate vehicles 2.75 meters tall. So I am still looking for tires.

Eventually we walked out with a large chariot (the French word for shopping basket) full of food, and a bottle of wine from Chile to add to our collection of French and Italian wines. Another interesting (at least to Ton and me) thing is that the days we do the least are often the most expensive. Due to tolls, buying fuel (at Costco), and groceries we spent 400% of what we budget per day while traveling.

Today we are visiting the ultimate palace in Europe. As I mentioned yesterday we have visited many palaces that advertised themselves as the Versailles of . . ., so today was my first time to see the model for palaces thru out Europe.

Ton visited Versailles a long time ago when she was a student in England. She spent the bus ride over wondering if the second visit would wow her like the first visit did. She remembered thinking she had never seen so much gold before.

These days you are only guaranteed entry if you buy a ticket on line with a scheduled time of entry. In our case we choose noon. We arrived about 10:15, and headed to the gardens to start our visit.

The gardens are immense, the scale and variety of types of gardens is hard to take in. There are several large man made lakes and forest trails that make up parts of the grounds. The gardens made a huge impression on me.

We had just begun to explore a small portion of the gardens when it was time to head to the line to get into the palace itself. The only disappointment was that because it was late in the season a lot of the flower beds had been pruned back in preparation for winter.

We joined a line of a couple of hundred people for the noon entrance to the palace. It looks like they allow a few hundred people to enter the palace every half hour. It is a big place, but even a palace the size of Versailles has a capacity that it can handle daily.

The interior of the palace is immense, and the opulence is impressive, and also unsettling. Ton told me that if the palace was built today it would cost the equivalent of 30 billion dollars. The majority of the palace was built during the reign of three kings over about 100 years. The last king Louis XVI was executed during the French Revolution.

These days it makes an impressive museum and the French are rightly proud of it and how it reflects French culture. The art and statues inside are indeed superb.

The room I really wanted to see was the hall of mirrors. I had read that it was one of the most impressive rooms in the world. Several important treaties have been signed there. As we got closer to the hall the rooms just proceeding it were jammed with people. We have not felt this crowded since the Vatican so that was kind of a bummer.

The room was impressive and very large. The art work was extensive and of very high quality and the chandeliers were beautiful. But I was expecting a little more.

We wrapped up our tour of Versailles Palace in another large hall full of paintings of battles won by the French for 600 years. The last battle included was during Napoleons reign.

When Napoleon took over as emperor about 15 years after Louis lost his head, the palace had been ransacked. While he had himself crowned in the palace, the cost of restoring it was going to be very expensive, so he moved into one of the minor buildings on the grounds called the Trianon Palace.

We had a bit of a walk to the palace because we had entered the gardens earlier in the day we could not reenter the gardens thru the same gate. The young lady told us there was another gate quite close we could use to reenter and gave us directions. It turns out quite close was about half a mile away, and when we got to that gate the nice young lady discouraged us from entering there but told us to go directly to the palace along the street. She said the palace was also quite close, which apparently in France means half a mile because I checked my watch when we got to the palace and we had walked a mile since we left the palace.

We enjoyed the palace as the scale seemed more human after Versailles even if it is quite a large home. It was busy with visitors but not teeming like the main palace.

The gardens here have an annual theme and this year it was Provence. The flowers had not been pruned back so Ton really enjoyed walking thru and taking in the different types and colors.

It is an amazing place, but in the end our ambivalence remained about the cost of the place, as a palace it is a scandal, as a museum of French culture it is a treasure. Later in the evening we were talking over palaces we have visited in Europe. We have visited many at this point, and Versailles is the model of many of them, but the one we really thought was the most beautiful and interesting was the Alhambra in Spain. It is also immense, but while Versailles feels like it is built to overwhelm the senses, the Alhambra feels like it embraces the senses, and we think that is harder to pull off.

Last night we purchased tickets to visit Versailles on Friday after consulting the weather forecast and seeing that it was supposed to start raining at about 1 pm today. With nothing special planned we slept in and tried to knock the last of the jet lag out of our system.

With an open day in front of us we decided to go to the local market which is supposed to be one of the best in Paris. By the time we got going it was almost 11am as we walked down to the bus stop to catch a ride to the market. The sky was bright blue and there was not a cloud in the sky. I wondered if Ton’s weather forecast was accurate, but she stood by it.

We took a turn around the surprisingly quiet market. We began speculating with the paralympics just ending last weekend that Paris may be getting a little lull in tourism. We had the market almost to ourselves.

After a turn around the market and Ton enjoying the sight of a lot of good food both cooked and uncooked we decided to take a little break for a coffee. While we were touring around the market the bright blue skies were giving way to clouds. We decided to jump into a cafe for a coffee and to plan the rest of the day. Since we were only a few hundred yards from the palace we decided to walk over and get a look at the palace.

It was a short walk to the palace, but just as we were getting there the rain really started coming down. Ton asked me what time it was and I told her 5 minutes to one. She looked really proud of herself as her forecast for rain at 1pm was almost perfect.

Just as we got to the front of the palace the rain began coming down in buckets. So we cut our day short and made a dash for the next bus back to the campground.

We spent the rest of the day listening to the rain and occasional thunder, and coming up with a more detailed plan for the rest of the trip. Initially I thought we were going to Vienna, but Ton thinks it would be nice to visit Tuscany during the harvest. It is a good thing we don’t have to make reservations when we travel!

Yesterday at the Bastogne Military Museum there was an exterior display commemorating the 35th anniversary of the Berlin Wall. There were three Trabant Cars that had been converted into art, and several chunks of the wall itself which had been used as canvas for art.

The second place on our list of places we wanted to visit that we have kept missing is Versailles. Ton visited about 45 years ago, and she wanted to have another look, and she felt like I should see it. Several of the palaces we have visited on our other trips claimed to be the Versailles of Spain, Latvia, or Bavaria etc. so we decided to put it on the itinerary and see the original.

The other motivation was to visit the Costco nearby to replace some stuff that the mouse got into as well as add some new American essentials to our cupboards. The drive from Bastogne was an easy three hours, until we hit Paris then the big city traffic kicked in. The main reason we had skipped Versailles in the past was my reluctance to take on Paris traffic. While it was busy and occasionally slow it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

We ended up spending an hour and a half at Costco and the biggest issue was deciding on what to buy based on the limited space we have to store things. A lot of stuff was left on the shelf, and the stuff that made the cut is really the essentials or the luxury item that will make us happy. I also filled François with the cheapest diesel in France, though I have to admit the last station we saw in Belgium had diesel slightly cheaper.

We are now parked up at a very expensive and mediocre campground in the city of Versailles. The weather is iffy the next couple of days, so we decided to stay three nights so we have the flexibility to see Versailles at its best.

Tons idea to switch to Gouda cheese to tempt our Dutch mouse worked out. So we believe we are now mouse free, but are going to leave the traps in place in case he has a friend.