October 25
We pushed back the clocks today so we slept in and still got up at 6:00am. Our objectives this day were to use up our two day Paris Museum Pass at Versailles and d’Orsay Museum. I plotted the subway routes carefully the night before on the RER line. My plans actually worked and we arrived at Versailles around 9:15.
The waiting line was already substantial. We followed the audio tour of the Palace and then the special exhibition on Louis XIV. After seeing two rooms, I was surprised that the Parisians had not beheaded all the rich, 'fat cats' many years before they did. The elegance of the bedrooms, ante-chambers, throne rooms, Hall of Mirrors, was far beyond anything I had ever imagined.
We didn’t have time to tour the gardens, but we could see them from the upper stories of the Palace. The Grand Canal and fountains matched or exceeded the interiors of the Palace.
Didn’t the King and his entourage realize that the starving masses might be a little angry at the royal opulence compared to the dire straits of the poor? They were apparently so isolated from the poor that they were totally oblivious. Louis XIV’s excesses were all on display. After a while they were nauseating. Anyway, we were tired of walking through the palace, so we left around 11:30, split a quick ham and cheese baguette (the owners of the café looked at us as though we were crazy eating lunch so early) and headed back to the RER station for the trip to d’Orsay.
All was well until we neared the Chaville-Velizy station. Suddenly the train stopped in a dark tunnel. All the lights went out and the train was completely silent. We were seated at the front of the train. Within a few seconds the driver came out of the locomotive with a flashlight. For a half-hour he went ballistic, swearing in French, pushing every button in sight, walking up and down the train talking to passengers in French, and yelling at his superiors on a cell phone. He was out of control. In a few minutes some passengers jumped off the train and started walking down the dark tunnel towards the next station. I wandered a few cars behind us asking if anyone spoke English. Parlez vous Anglais?
One woman volunteered to help saying that the train would be stuck here for at least two hours. It was an easy decision. Stay on board with this loose canon French engineer or hop off in the dark tunnel. Barbara and I followed the few who disembarked onto the tracks. About a half-mile later we emerged at the next station. I followed the lead of a French teenager in front of me, climbed over the exit turnstile, and headed for the ticket office. I asked an RER official about getting back to Paris. He told Barbara (who went under the turnstile) and me to walk to the next station: “Go on the road parallel to the tracks and turn left at the bridge ahead.” We did as instructed, trudged up a steep hill, and arrived at the next station. Now we weren’t sure what to do next. We were blessed (Mom and the nuns must have been praying) to run into two women, one Canadian and one Irish, who knew the way. We stuck to them like glue and maneuvered our way through several RER stations until we arrived at St. Michel. First we stopped for a cold Heineken then we walked 15 minutes along the Seine to the d’Orsay Museum.
Now we faced a monstrous line but we didn’t tangle with dark tunnels, idiot engineers, steep hills, and crowded RER stations to give up now. Thirty minutes later we were entering codes in our audio guide sets to hear esoteric descriptions of famous Impressionist paintings including van Gogh’s Starry Night…, Renoir’s Bal du Moulin…, and Cezanne’s Apples and Oranges below:
An hour later we were beat, so we made a side trip for some coffee and a waffle topped with ice cream, chocolate syrup, and whipped cream. That gave us enough energy to tour the rest of the museum for a while longer. Then we were back to the RER station for the trip back to the hotel. We were so tired and disoriented that we walked right past the hotel for several blocks before turning back.
Collapsing in our room, we rejoiced in our refrigerated Gordon’s gin and orange juice, Tylenol, and Motrin. Maybe we’ll be able to laugh about our odyssey tomorrow.
We had dinner at a nearby brasserie: grilled chicken on a mound of French fries, steak on a mound of French fries. Maybe we’ll find a better place tomorrow for our last night in Paris. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette would never have settled for this.
