Part 3- The Castle of Versailles and then to Chamonix

Sept. 10-11, 2008

Wednesday morning, we headed South of Paris to the Castle of Versailles. As we learned, this was the home of the kings of France from 1682 1790, most notably was King Louis XVI and his very famous wife, Marie Antoinette.

The front gates

Not a great picture, but shows the enormous entrance and square

The castle at a distance

The Dauphine's room. The Dauphine was like the princess. So, this was Marie Antoinette's room until she became Queen.

A private hallway leading to the King's private bedrooms

I can't remember the significance of this hallway, it seems it has paintings on the ceiling and many chandeliers

The King's bed. Pretty crazy because every morning the King would wake up with people lined up along the railing in the picture. Not much privacy......

What is she pointing at with that silly grin?!!

The grounds and gardens

Mom and I in front of one of the many fountains

After lunch, we headed 5 hours South of Paris to the French Alps and Chamonix. From our other blog postings, this may look familiar but it is somewhere that everybody must see. We found a great hotel overlooking the Mont Blanc Mastif (and a golf course).

This is the view in the morning

A view of our hotel on the way down the mountain

LC strapped on her hiking shoes, filled her water bottles, grabbed some walking sticks and hit the trails.


Taking a break. You can see one of the glaciers across the valley

Now, before this hike, my mother told me she has never been hiking and that she was deathly afraid of heights. Now, does that look like a picture of such a person?!!!

Some Alpine lake

This shows the trail that we took, starting at the mountain hut in the background. In all, I think this ranked up there for the both of us as the best place we visited during our trip.