Thursday we took the train to Versailles
I finally learned to use Gimp (instead of Photoshop in case I don’t have my own computer) and took a few people out of this image. The result was by far not as good as it would have been and it took an hour rather than 10 minutes, but it made me happy to learn something new. Gimp is a free program, and for that an do a lot. What worried me a bit was that I discovered a whole lot of cool new features, so I guess it’s time to upgrade my Photoshop to a newer version… (and spend less money doing so than it cost us to travel to France)
No photoshopping on this one, people went away by themselves
That’s looking out to the same area as the photo above
I put all the photos from the lower park together, even though we crossed it multiple times, once before going in the chateau, then for lunch in the park, and after lunch all the way down to Marie Antoinette’s farm, and late back up again.
The fountains were off, and they had removed all the flowers this exact day, some of them were still so beautiful, laying in big piles to die… I’ll spare you these photos, but there were still other interesting features:
The place where we had a reasonably priced and good lunch – crepes and salad – also had cats.
Sadly it was locked but at least we could photograph in
The little wild area was open from one side and forbidden from the other…
Leilani tricked the swans by throwing pebbles in the water, they all swam over to see
The park is so big, we rented bicycles and biked to the guesthouse, the Grand Trianon
They had an exhibition about the women at Versailles, and on a different day I would have been very impressed… or maybe it should have been seen before the chateau.
That (and a few other pieces not visible in this photo) was made of malachite, and impressed me even after seeing all the rest… and I’m proud of the photo too…
A park in the park…
We finished the day with a dinner with Sakura and Xavier and his parents, who Andy has known from childhood
No, that is not at the Louvre yet. But I still liked it… mushrooms…
They have so much art, it spills over into the metro station
Leilani near the entrance
WHile Andy stood in line for the tickets, we picked out a “snack” – an expensive mouse-au-chocolat and a really expensive truffle, but they were very good, and eaten with a view, and held us over until lunch at 3pm
We did take some photos of the art, but most were so bad that I decided not to post them, mostly the ones us and a few of the museum itself. We spent 6 hours there, and this time it was me who passed out at 5:30, not Leilani…
When we went out for lunch we saw this metro station. We had really good food and wine, a beautiful salad for me, a salmon sandwich for Andy and fried eggs with salad for Leilani.
The room with the Mona Lisa was surprisingly empty…
Not really… it was claustrophobic…I have no idea how I managed the photo above.
When we had seen the winged victory before Leilani had been pretty disappointed. But when she spotted these she immediately pointed out that that’s how it had looked before (and I’m sure had she been in charge of the restauration, would look today…)
I really liked this mosaic, which came from an early church, and was in the Islamic art exhibition.
Like always, Leilani was very excited to be on the plane
We stopped at a little cafe with a great view of he opera house when we changed from the bus to the metro. I liked all the fresh veggies… although I had a coffee and a croissant
The first day we went to see the Eiffel Tower, crossing the Seine on the way there.
Not only is it a lot cheaper, the lines are much shorter taking the stairs.
Below we found some birds to feed
Leilani left the house Sunday at 6pm. We landed in Paris at 7am Tuesday, and arrived at Xavier’s house here around 9:30. Given how little she slept on the planes, I couldn’t believe she lasted even that long, but as soon as we sat down, Leilani passed out on the bench.
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