Third Times the Charm . . Sort Of

 While preparing the kids for our trip to Europe, we spent quite a bit of time learning about the French Revolution. It seemed so relevant to their lives and I knew that they would revisit the themes of this time period over and over.  In Massachusetts we almost lived on the battlefields of the American Revolution, which was partially inspired by the French Revolution, and it was our minutemen in our town that earned the 01776 zip code. It only takes a drive into Boston, past a small plot of land filled with tents, to have a conversation about Occupy Wall street and they will address in school what happens when the rich get too rich and the poor get too poor. Versailles was the perfect example of the French Royalty's excess at a time when the commoners were hungry and poor, so I knew that we had to take a good look at this grand palace. Unfortunately it took three tries to get it right! We stayed over in Versailles on our way to Paris but when we arrived at the ticket booth in the morning, there was a two hour wait outside and it was pouring rain and cold. With six children who were already shivering, I knew that waiting was not an option. We would return later in the week. I did some research on line and found that there was an obscure parking lot with a small gate that led into the vast gardens. If we bought our tickets in advance, we could skip both the ticket line and the equally long entrance line.  After a morning spent at church and lunch at our favorite French restaurant chain, Hippopotamus, we tried again. We found the parking lot and the gate, and we were in. However, this put us at an inconvenient spot to tour the property in an efficient manner. We made our way up to the palace. The kids were in awe of the gold painted trim and gates, the mere size of the building and the lavishness of the interior. We walked through the famous hall of mirrors, imagining luxuriant parties. 

We walked briefly through the gardens and fit in a rowing on the grand canal.

Unfortunately our time ran out. We had not seen Marie Antoinette's Hameau or done the gardens justice. As we left, I tried to console myself with the thought that when traveling you can't see everything and that is why you come back. Over the next couple of days, this didn't sit well with me. The kids had learned so much about this place and they knew about Marie Antoinette. I realized that upon leaving the area of Paris, we would drive right past Versailles. I decided that we had to make another stop to finish Versailles. As we rushed out of the Pris area, we found our hidden parking spot in Versailles. We picked up golf carts, which took us on a tour of the gardens, with a narration and baroque music playing in the speakers.

We made our way straight to Marie Antoinette's dairy farm, to finish off this place. Marie Antoinette was bored, so she built a model of a peasant's village. She loved dressing up as a milk maid and pretending that she was one of the commoners. The area was complete with windmills, ponds with swans and a marble farm house. This didn't sit well with the Frenchmen who did live in peasant villages that were not so luxurious. The price tag got out, providing fuel to a political fire that was already raging. I was so happy that we had made it back to see this. We had seen the cell that Marie Antoinette was held in and we had walked through the Place de la Concorde in Paris where she was guillotined. We had even had a French Revolution party, thanks to Grandma Gretta, where the girls wore Marie Antoinette wigs, dressed in exuberant baroque dresses and we all ate a multi course Parisian dinner. The kids knew Marie Antoinette and had opinions of how she fit into the Revolution. Sophia had given a dramatic explanation more than once defending her siding with the historians who thought that she was treated unjustly rather than those who argue that she was superficial and one cause of the Revolution.





I left feeling that finally we had seen Versailles they way it should have been seen . . . sort of. Unfortunately on our third trip, it was pouring rain with frigid temperatures. We could see our breath and by the end I had very unhappy children on my hands. In fact, we still use this day as a gauge for how cold it is outside. "Will it be as cold as it was on that one day that we went to that farm with the animals and we rode on the golf carts? If it is, I'm not going!"Ezra has said on many occasions. The good news is that we have not surpassed the discomfort that we experienced that day. To me, I still believe that, while traveling, you only remember the good things and that it takes a lot of work and sometimes sacrifice to get the best out of life. I hope that, with a little time, this will be the case with my children regarding our three days at Versailles.