Paris, Day 9: In Which Candice Goes to Versailles and Realizes Her Kids Need a Break From Sightseeing.

This is about halfway through the palace. Isn't it fun when all the grandparents pass you and say how cute your kids are, or smile knowingly or encouragingly? That's fine and all, but why don't they just pick one up and carry them for me?

Versailles. Ed said it would be totally worth it. It wasn’t. Sure, it was cool, but the line was an hour long, the kids were toast before we ever got inside the palace, and it was so crowded I spent all my energy keeping track of everyone and trying to keep them from getting trampled. By the Hall of Mirrors, we were on a beeline for the door. The kids had nothing left in them to try to do the gardens. So now I know: if you have young children, go to Versailles in December when it’s empty, or don’t go at all. Even if you have advance tickets, there will still be a line and there will still be huge crowds. Maybe someone else knows a secret I don’t know, but our experience was a bust.

When we got in line, we were up by the palace gates, and the line went back down to the courtyard gates, and back up to where we were standing. After we were about halfway through the line, I looked over and noticed there was now a third row as well. When we left at the end of our tour, they had actually stopped the line and weren't letting any more people in because it had reached capacity.

The infamous Hall of Mirrors 

The kids could generally only see other people's legs and what was directly over their heads. Linda got a nice picture of this chandelier.

We made it out alive and together. Amazing.

On the other hand, we had made the older kids do a pseudo-report on the Bastille a few days ago, and now they had perspective on King Louis and Marie Antoinette to flesh out their understanding of the Revolution. And even though Abby had complained almost the entire way through the palace, when we got home she was all smiles and positivity about it. “It was so cool and beautiful, Grandma!” Grrrr.

On the way home, we stopped at H&M and picked up a sweatshirt for Joe (Mary found hers) and some glow-in-the-dark skeleton pajamas for Abby. After all—who doesn’t need skeleton pajamas? The coolest thing at the mall was a post at the end of each parking lane telling you how many empty spaces were available in that row. So convenient and helpful! It made the awful traffic a little easier to bear.

Someone deserves big bucks for this invention.