Nice place and high expectation of introducing the kids to the masterpieces of the world. From the metro station, we entered the Lourve’s compound and found ourselves in front of the famous glass pyramids.
Tickets are sold inside the main pyramid where you take the escalator down. The queue was short (must be the combination of us being early and the fact that it was a working day) and we soon found ourselves inside and under the glass pyramid. Many happy snapping moments as well in there. The Lourve complex is huge and we got ourselves a location map to plan our outing there.
However, while we were busy planning, the kids being observant as they usually are, came up with some confounding statements and observations. To cut the story short, at the risk of being art-blind, we ended up NOT going in to see the exhibits due to what the kids deemed as a lot of the exhibits being unsuitable for those below 12 years-old. Having been to the National Gallery in London, and not wanting to jeopardise the values that we have been working hard to instill in them all these while, we have to agree with them. We did stumble upon the inverted pyramid (made famous by the 'Da Vinci Code') among other things.
After spending about 30 minutes wandering around in the complex, we found a Sortie and suddenly found ourselves near the Jardines de Tuileries with its merry-go-rounds and ferris wheel.
We spent an hour or so in the park and kept walking across it until we got to the ‘pencil with golden lead’ according to my son. We then walked-up (or was it down) Champ de Elyssee.....a metro took us back to the hotel for a snack-lunch and solat before the afternoon driving outing.
In the afternoon, we drove to Versailles for the Chateau. We had planned to only view the external and the gardens based on recommendations and we feel that was the right decision unless you are interested in antiques and period furnishing that are just as obscene as the gardens. Hmmm....yup... obscene. That’s how we would describe the Chateau in one word – and this struck us from the social perspective. It’s just so obscene to think that the royal family was living in such a gigantic, out of this world, 17th century version of Neverland. Now, putting that thought aside.
The Chateau de Versailles is huge...gigantically, enormously huge. As we entered the garden area from the path in between the main building and one of the wings, we were greeted by a huge lawn with flower beds of various sizes and ponds with fountains. The area is easily bigger than 10 football fields.
The edges at the sides are waist-high of solid stones. After a long walk, we got to the sides and all our thoughts of resting on the low fence evaporated when we realised that we were actually standing on a roof-top garden.
The HUGE garden that we saw which is just on one wing of the Chateau is actually just a roof-top garden. Far below from the viewing area (the ‘seats’), are more gardens that we later found out to be a citrus garden (like “dusun”) which can be accessed by walking down a huge staircase at the furthest end of the roof-top garden.
Only when we got to the bottom of the staircase did we realise that further out are more gardens....and then after climbing back up the HUGE staircase and walked to the middle area of the Chateau did we see the expanse of the ‘garden’ – sejauh mata memandang..... that’s how it’s like and no wonder they rent golf-buggy to visitors who wish to explore the gardens – and even then we doubt that they got to cover everything.
Unfortunately we found out about the buggy when we were done and were walking back. Anyhow, if the standard of the Chateau de Versailles is to be used, then none of our kings’ palaces in Malaysia are big. The look like store rooms probably in comparison. Therefore...obscene in our view.
From Versailles, we decided to hunt for dinner (we had sort of decided on having instant/self-prepared meal alternated with eating-out meal). Keying in the address of the halal restaurant we found on the internet in the Nuvi brought us to the Colombes area. The restaurant was closed unfortunately but we did find a few others including a Mc Doner (in case you don’t know – it’s Doner Kebab). We ended up having some nice kebabs in a joint called Ali Pacha – the owner did not speak English and we of course speak French very well .... provided nobody needs to understand us. Anyhow, we managed to place our orders and the food was good (EUR30 for 5 kebabs and drinks).
We also bought some provisions from a supermarket nearby – Le Eclerce or something like that. The necessities – bottled water, bread, snacks and juices. Interestingly, the supermarket has a whole frozen section of halal food. How we wish these are available in Sainsbury back in the UK.
From Colombes, we decided to drive around Paris at night, including a brief stop in front of the Notre Dame. Nice architecture.
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