Paris Day 3, Versailles and The Louvre

On our last day in Paris we visited The Palace of Versailles and the Louvre.

The Palace of Versailles is about 40 minutes outside Paris. As you can tell, we were there pretty early. The palace opens at about 9am and we were there before opening to try to beat most the crowds and make the most of our day. It was surprisingly busy even then!

The gold leaf gates in the morning sunlight.

Palace of Versailles on the other side of the gate. It's huge, so impossible to get in a single picture.

Hall of Mirrors. My favorite!!

The Queen's bedroom. The King's bedroom looked almost the same, just not as feminine. Their bedrooms were surprisingly small! But the bedrooms were probably the most decorated rooms of the palace. And there is a gate between the bed and the rest of the room. It was really like this because people would come to watch the King and Queen wake up in the mornings.

Palace gardens. I'm sure these are even more gorgeous in the summer when all the plants are in bloom and the fountains are working. I would definitely go back just to see the gardens again.

The Louvre!! SO EXCITED!! The main entrance is through the glass pyramid, but we learned a very valuable trick, use the back door!! Even though we still spent almost 45 minutes in line just to get through security, the line through the front was even longer. And buy your ticket ahead of time or at one of the kiosks at the back door, even more time saved!

Sadly we were only at the Louvre for 3 hours. Seriously! Sacrilege!!! Our tour guide did teach us some tricks for finding many of the most popular pieces quickly, but there was little time for much else.

Venus de Milo

Winged Victory of Samothrace

Mona Lisa

The green dot is unfortunately in all of my pictures. It is the reflection of the exit sign off of the glass. Good thing for photoshop!

The crowds you have to fight to see the Mona Lisa!! Craziness! I'm actually pretty good at weaseling my way though this mess. I got to the front pretty quickly! But look at the lady in the wheel chair who got wheeled right to the front! Dad....you know what I'm thinking!