European Adventure | Day 7

During our last full day in France, Mom and I walked more than 26,000 steps. Oh, and we toured Versailles and spent a few more hours in Paris.

(But those steps, right? That's 12 miles, in case you were wondering.)

We left the boat early so we would be one of the first groups inside of Versailles, but we still had to wait to get in. Once we made it inside, it was extremely crowded. Other tourists would dart in front of us without looking, and it sometimes felt like they were pushing us out of the way on purpose. This made it difficult to take everything in, but what I saw was quite opulent. The Hall of Mirrors was especially impressive.







After our guided tour ended at 11 a.m., Mom and I looked around on our own and explored the gardens. The gardens seemed to go on forever, but unfortunately, no flowers were in bloom. Mom and I did a lot of our walking for the day here as we strolled up and down the garden paths. The highlight of our visit was seeing a mother duck swimming with her eleven baby ducklings in one of the fountains.







Once we finished looking around the gardens, we walked into the town of Versailles and ate lunch at a café. Both of us had been craving pizza, so we ordered a Margherita pizza to share. It was basically a plain cheese pizza, but it was so, so good. Afterward, we walked around the town and then headed back to catch the bus at 3 p.m.

We had a short trip into Paris with one other couple. Once we arrived in the city, Mom and I walked over to the Musée d'Orsay and finally made it inside. We had to rush through because the museum was closing at 6 p.m., but we saw most of the Impressionist art and the other paintings mentioned in my trusty Rick Steves book. After we left the museum, we walked down the Champs d'Elysees until our feet couldn't take it any more. We made it back to the bus early, so our guide took us to Les Invalides for a photo stop. We then drove slowly back to the boat and arrived there around 7:15 p.m.





That evening we decided not to eat dinner on the boat because we were so tired. Instead, we rested in our room for a little bit before going out to hunt for bread and cheese. We found both at separate places and came back to our room to enjoy them. Both were wonderful, but the cheese ended up being very stinky. After we finished eating, Mom took the leftovers up to one of the communal trash cans so we wouldn't have to smell it.

Our last day in France was long, but it was a nice way to say au revoir to the country we had enjoyed exploring over the last week. Now it was on to England!