Versailles, a marathon, and lost!

    Ever wait a v-e-r-y long time for something, and find that it doesn't meet the expectations you've created whilst waiting to actually experience it? Well...been waiting a LONG time to get to France, and I am not at all disappointed. Confused at times (and I know the language, so I can only imagine how it is for those that don't!) - signage is not as clear here, or maybe I should say signage is not as present here.
     I really wanted to go the Château Versailles tomorrow, but it's closed on Monday. That should have been my first clue that today was not a good second choice. We had to decide to go somewhere, right, and I was concerned that doing the Louvre/Notre Dame/Ste. Chappelle might be crazy on a Sunday. Well, it seems as though LOTS of things are crazy on a Sunday - maybe these Europeans need to open stores on Sundays so the crowds have places to go other than tourist sites.
     Getting there was easy - there's a RER (train) stop about 1/4 mile from our apartment, with the right train to Versailles. Check. We had no trouble knowing where to get off - it was the end of the line...check. As the mass of passengers poured out of the train, we followed the crowd - not knowing that TODAY was the Versailles-Paris marathon. Evidently, we were following marathon well-wishers, and did a little marathon of our own - added an extra mile (1/2 going and 1/2 retracing our steps - first "lost" of the title of this post), but were comfortable with shade and a nice breeze. It was pretty warm in the sun, though. See the marathon runners:

     I was going to ask one for permission to take a photo, but these guys were obviously ok with photos, so I surreptitiously got my photo without having to ask. :) Once we realized we were going the wrong way, we arrived at the Château - it's pretty easy to find once going in the right direction! We had entry tickets already with our "Paris Pass" so avoided the ticket line - and had to stand in the entry line for a little over an hour. (A little aside here: Americans are NOT the rudest tourists...there was a group of a different nationality - a sizeable tour group - that just kind of merged into the line in front of us partway through the waiting line. There were no line guards  - it was basically a free-form line snaking six or seven times the length of the courtyard - and when we and people in front of us told them that the line started elsewhere, the guide told us they'd been waiting for a long time in this line. Hmmmm...we suddenly had all these same nationality group, an umbrella, people we didn't see in front of us before - they took cuts! Only about 8-10 of their group actually got in front of us, and the guide was walking even with us - they just widened the line from two across to about six...not cool. I did not name the nationality group because it's not fair to generalize - but - there were a LOT of this particular ethnic group here at Versailles today, and most were not polite, as our culture has been taught to expect from their culture. Sigh.)

    Waiting in line, I suddenly realized that I had either dropped, or someone had grabbed my nylon windbreaker jacket - luckily, I only had a couple of tissues in the pockets, but shuddered to think that last night, I'd had the key to our apartment in one of the pockets. I liked that jacket, and we actually saw a man with one just like it folded up in his bag!  I wanted to have faith in mankind (it was, after all, a common black and white Adidas windbreaker), but it seemed a little suspicious...but not worth worrying about - thus the second "lost" from the post title. Here's Versailles from the courtyard:

     The final "lost" was the lost opportunity to see other parts of Versailles. We looked at the beautiful gardens, and I decided I wanted to visit Marie Antoinette's hamlet - but didn't realize we had to get off the tram and we missed the opportunity to do that without a lot of extra walking (not high on my list of activities at this time of the day...) - so we went to the "Grand Canal" - which can be seen from the Château when looking out over the gardens from the higher floor. We took the tram back, and had a bit of an adventure at the train station - although our transportation pass got us TO Versailles, it would not get us back - it was in a different zone than was included on our passes. So, we had to purchase tickets (not bad, just €1,70 each - just a bit annoying). Home after a quick dinner, and continuous viewing of the Eiffel Tower light show...another good day, in spite of being lost and losing my jacket. (If that's the worst that happens to us on this trip - we are all set!)