Wednesday June 27th: Versailles and the Eiffel Tower

The Hall of Mirrors
A beautiful Chateau on the grounds of Versailles
Versailles!
Top of the Eiffel Tower
The group posing for a picture on the Eiffel

Today we went to Versailles! I’ve been waiting to go there and It was just as amazing as I had hoped. Unfortunately, the place is so big we didn’t even see half of it and we were there all day long! We met our tour guide in our hotel lobby at 9:30 a.m. He was pretty rude to a few of the people in our group and seemed a little bitter towards us because we're Americans. He was very informative though so I just shrugged it off and enjoyed Versailles! The Hall of Mirrors was the one room I wanted to see the most and I heard it was closed for renovations! Luckily our tour guide told us we were just in time because it just opened yesterday! I was so happy! We have been so lucky on this trip so far. A little background on the Hall of Mirrors: The over 300 year old room was made for Louis XIV and is now the masterpiece of Versailles. The hall is the largest room in Palace and is filled with numerous chandeliers, impressive pillars, paintings, seventeen windows and seventeen mirrors. The room was made to be jaw dropping and that’s exactly what it is. Mirrors were expensive and rare in the 1600s and even having a hand held mirror showed that you had money and power so you can only imagine how impressive the room was to guest of the King. Versailles’ grounds are so incredible that it puts all the other grounds we have visited to shame! We all got very tired and a little ornery by the end of the day. When we got home it was starting to get dark so we hurried to head up the Eiffel Tower before sunset. We had such an amazing time and the view of Paris was awesome. Afterwards, we grabbed some crepes and headed home to bed.