When we arrived at our destination we asked one of the guys out front if we could check in. After he told us we had only booked for five (awkward), we reassured him we had booked for six! Turns out he just hadn't added on the one child (awkward for Kyle!). Then were handed six blue cards and told to just wait for a few minutes. Shortly afterwards everyone with a blue card was asked to come inside and wait for our guide. We all piled into the little room where we met our guide Anna and 'learner' guide, Ben! And guess what, both Australian! And that's not all, we had another group of three Aussies and four Kiwi's! Needless to say we outnumbered the four Americans and were all feeling right at home! Once we were all introduced to each other and Anna had spoken a little bit about where we were going to be going, we walked a short way to the Champ de Mars Train Station, heading for Versailles.
After arriving in Versailles after a short twenty minute train ride we headed out of the Train Station and followed Anna to their Fat Tire Bike Tour shed to collect our bikes. We each found a bike and adjusted it to suit us, before having a little practice ride around the courtyard.
When we were all ready and had attached our baskets, we all hoped on and started following Anna to the Fresh Food Markets of Versailles, with Ben following behind us all. We stopped a few times for Anna to point something out to us or tell us which way to ride. Soon after leaving the courtyard we arrived at the Markets. We parked the bikes in a line and left Ben to lock them up before wandering through the markets buying food for our picnic lunch later on. We bought cheese and meat (including a pate, apparently "the best in France!") and baguettes. We bought fruit and wine and patisseries! An hour later we all made our way through the crowds and back to the bikes. We loaded our baskets with the food and drink we had just bought and mounted our bikes. From there we began riding to Marie Antoinette's 'getaway'!
Marie Antoinette's story began when she was only a young Austrian girl, twelve in fact! She came from a wealthy family but did not have to worry about marrying anyone important as she had several older sisters to carry on the family name. She wasn't worried at all and had little, if any, responsibility for her actions. That was until her older sisters all, one by one, became ill and slowly died. Then all of a sudden, she was the oldest and she had all of the responsibility! At the age of twelve she was told she was to marry the very awkward, caring, Prince of France, Louis XVI. She had around two years to prepare herself by learning fluent French, the history of politics, proper etiquette and so much more. At fourteen she was sent to France, never to see her home or family again. She married Prince Louis days after arriving in France but their marriage was never fully consecrated until seven years later, when they had their first child. Marie was sent to marry Louis XVI, so she could produce children who could take the thrown later in life. As you could imagine, the public didn't like that they had to wait seven years for the first child and started disliking Marie Antoinette a little more, the longer they had to wait.
Marie did not enjoy living in the chateau, as there was an insane number of rules and regulations were kept. For example, certain people would be allowed to be in the Kings chambers when he woke, another group, when he went to sleep. Someone would open the door for him, someone would stand next to that person. Someone would sit down before another and someone else after them. Every single person had a role and place, and they had to keep it. King Louis XVI knew how Marie Antoinette felt and offered her a piece of land for her to escape to. It was here that we visited.
When we arrived we pulled up our bikes and headed in. Marie Antoinette decided to build a small peasant like village full of farm animals, a flour mill, a milking station and even a large pond full of fish. Every last detail was built to her liking, and it was impressive! We walked through the land, past rabbits and chooks, cows, huge pigs, ducks and even little chicks! The land was absolutely beautiful, and served its purpose wonderfully, it looked like a small peasant village, just as Marie Antoinette wanted. After doing a short lap around the lake looking at the small buildings we hoped back onto the bikes and made our way closer the the Chateau of Versailles for our picnic lunch!
As you would think, the peasants weren't too pleased that Queen Marie was 'playing peasant' when a lot of the population was poor and starving! They were quite angered by the whole situation, even though the Queen intended nothing of the sorts! Unfortunately, Marie enjoyed a very short four years in the Chateau, before the French Revolution began in 1789.
We arrived at our picnic area along side the chateau canal, we all got out our food and drink we had carried in our baskets and sat down on the grass. We ate and drank and relaxed for around about an hour. The canal was beautiful! The huge hand created canal is shaped like a massive crucifix, and points perfectly North to South, East to West, with the sun rising and setting exactly inline with it. The amazing effort put into the creation of the water system is six foot deep and took around eleven years to fully create! And where does the water come from you ask? The nearest river is the river Seine two miles from the canal. This means that the water must be pumped from the river to the canal constantly, through several individual pump systems at different times! It would have taken a huge amount of time and energy to get everything working and timed perfectly without the technology we have today!
After a big feed for us all, we mounted our bikes again and rode along the canal up closer towards the chateau. We stopped a fair way from the entrance where we stopped and where told the fate of the King and Queen of France.
Riots began breaking out all over France. And soon revolutioners broke into the chateau itself in search of the king and queen. Marie escaped through a secret passage and ran away to the place Louis was at the time. Eventually however the two were captured and imprisoned. At first the two were kept together in the prison but were later separated, where they would never see the other again. On the 21st of January, 1793, King Louis XVI was dressed in glorious clothes, transported in the finest carriage lead by one of the most beautiful horses, to his execution. At noon that day, the king died.
Marie was kept for a further nine months, suffering even more, before being executed. On October the 16th of the same year, Marie Antoinette was dressed in rags, dumped in an old supplies carriage and paraded around the city for everyone to see, for 6 hours. When noon came she was pushed up the stairs to be executed. Tired, weak and frail, she stumbled up to her place, accidentally tripping on the executors foot. Marie apologised profoundly but the executor did not believe it was an accident. He then stepped up to the guillotine, unscrewed the sharp, clean blade, and replaced it with his oldest, grossest, most used blade. She was placed in spot and he raised the blade. Instead of raising it fully, for a quicker death, he raised it half way and released. Marie was in excruciating pain but had not been killed. Once again the executor raised the blade half way, and once again he let it drop, still not killing Marie. On the third attempt, Marie was finally put out of her misery, and had been killed.
Once we had finished discussing the story we rode our bikes back to the fat tire tour shed in Versailles, where we started and dropped the bikes off before walking back to wander the halls of the great chateau!
When we entered the chateau the rooms were crowded with hundreds of people in a single room. We managed to shuffle through several rooms, but unfortunately, no where near the huge number in the whole of the beautiful palace. The one room we were not leaving without seeing however was the Hall of Mirrors (the photo above). One huge wall lined with floor to ceiling mirrors the other lined with magnificent windows looking out into the gardens! The Hall of Mirrors was actually the room that the Treaty of Versailles was signed in ending the First World War!
After having enough of the stuffy, crowded, tourist filled rooms we headed out to the garden for a look and some fresh air. The gardens were equally as beautiful as the inside with a lot fewer people to dodge! The Chateau of Versailles is known for it's many water fountains and features scattered throughout the whole area! We wandered for a while but all tired we decided to head for an ice cream and then home!
From there we headed downstairs to the Metro and hoped on the B line to Luxembourg. The train arrived and it was packed! Luckily though most of the people hoped off as we got on. We were on the train waiting for the doors to close when a girl on the platform points towards someone on the train. With that, two other girls on the tube jumped off just as the doors closed. We all knew by the way they got off as the doors closed that they had knocked something. Yep, as everyone frantically checked their bags and pockets, mum looked down to find her bag had been opened and her purse gone. By now, the doors were closed and the train had left, there was no way to get it back. They had taken all of mums cards, my travel card and around €70 cash. And boy did they do it well!
We hurried home as quickly as we could to block, and protect all of our cards with the help of Katie Brooks (you go girl!) we were able to stop any transactions from the card. However, it was clear now that I had received my memory genes from dad, as I could not remember my username to my travel card. It was even worse that I had remembered to bring all of my other information, except that vital piece! I racked my brain for hours trying to remember the tiny detail. And after praying to St Anthony (the patron saint of lost things) quietly I could not remember it!
We spent most of the evening feeling a lot of mixed emotions including anger, stupidity (mainly on my behalf because I couldnt remember my username! Urgh!) and annoyance! We even took the time to all reinact how they must have done it. We even had enough time on our hands to blame ourselves for what had happened. In the end we all agreed that it was just that we were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and hopefully karma would bite them back hard one day! We all settled off to bed eventually, (me still trying desperately to remember my username!) and dozed off into a much needed sleep and relaxation after the recent events and occurrences!
Woah! Big day!
Love Ash x
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