‘Get in, get out, get it done…’

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Paris - Rouen

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​We’re nearing the end of our trip, and upon waking up this morning we did not have to put our tent away in it’s little sack, it went directly into the bin.  Thankfully, there would be no more camping.  We weren’t sprinting to the finish however, today was still a tourist day and we had the last two major attractions on our plate:  Versailles and Giverny.

We arrived at Versailles quite early and were very surprised to see two very very long lines…  Ugh.  Jonathan got in the line to get the tickets and I got into the line to enter the palace grounds.  I immediately saw that my line was moving much faster than his and started nervously planning what I would do when I reached the front of the line and still had no entrance ticket.  Luckily that wasn’t a problem as there was a crowd of people waiting beside the entrance doing the exact same thing.  When Jonathan finally appeared he was moaning about the fact that were ticket machines inside that no one was using and no one mentioned until he had already waited in line for half an hour before entering the hall where the and the human tellers were selling tickets.  Oh well.
 

It was packed.  It was unbelievable.  It was like a Tokyo metro car at rush hour, they needed those people mover boards to push us around, it was ridiculous and uncomfortable and there were no quick exits. Everyone was taking loads and loads of pictures that they would never look at and their friends would skip over in the albums because there was no one in them, but we were stuck.  Moving with the very slow flow of oohing and awing tourists we were not enjoying our visit.  So when we got to the hall of mirrors we were pretty much over it.  But ok then, back to the car and onto the next location.

Giverny was great and not crowded I think it’s the only place in France the Chinese haven’t discovered yet.  It’s beautiful gardens are very well maintained and you can literally see exactly where Monet sat to paint his famous water lilies series.  Also fantastic was his house.  His studio was complete with loads of priceless paintings covering the walls very casually and even a photo of him standing in that room.  It was understated and comfortable and much more enjoyable than Versailles.

We got in the car at 1:30 and realized nervously this would be we would arrive at our hotel before 4… Which meant something was bound to go wrong, we never made it anywhere before 4.  We checked Milo’s fluids and looked nervously at the tires, held our breath every time we hit a bump and pressed on.  We made it without incident; parked Milo up and after 4 days without a bed we had a nice long nap on a very comfortable bed.

Rouen was another lovely empty city, we had a French dinner and settled in for our last night on the road, this trip was coming to an end.