A tale of two palaces

Chateau Versailles

When I decided to put Paris in my itinerary, and began thinking of what I wanted to do there, it didn't take long to resolve to go to Versailles. I felt the need to see this grandest of palaces, like it was the thing to do.

So on the Tuesday of my time in France (generally a no-no, as the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays, and so everyone goes to Versailles, but that was just the way the days fell), I hopped on the RER train from my hotel in the suburbs, transferred to another RER train in the city, and went out to Versailles. As I've already noted, entry was a debacle.

Crowds and opulence, the Versailles experience.

Once I got inside the gates, I began to see how ridiculously crowded it was. By the time I picked up my English language audio guide and made my way up to the royal apartments, it was pretty much wall-to-wall people. Dutifully, I shuffled through the rooms with the rest of the crowds, listening to bits of my audio guide, but refusing to be like so many of the other tourists who were dead set on listening to ALL of the audio for EVERY single number, and holding up the rest of the crowd as they stood there with their little plastic boxes up to their ears.

Only slightly opulent.

Fortunately, though, the audio guide wasn't actually all that interesting, and it was quite uneven. Most of what I heard focused on the functions of the rooms, and only occasionally did it throw out a bit on Marie Antoinette, or anyone else of interest. So I resorted to doing what everyone else was doing, shuffling through the rooms, gaping at the opulence of it all, and taking pictures. Finally, I reached a point where it dawned on me — no wonder the people revolted. If there is one takeaway from Versailles, it's that.

The famous Hall of Mirrors.

The apartments began to feel like an endless string of opulence, to the point where I was desensitized to gilt and paintings and frilly bits. It was only after much more of all of these that I made my way out into the gardens, which I don't think I fully grasped the scope of until I walked and walked and walked and walked and still was not even halfway to Marie Antoinette's house.

A "small" area of the gardens.

They were mindbogglingly extensive, but not quite what I'd expected out of gardens. There were plenty of landscaped bushes, and fountains, but flowers were few and far between until I got to Marie Antoinette's house and the Grand Trianon, both of which had some lovely flowers.

Much of the gardens were like this — tall, landscaped bushes and dusty gravel paths.

Roses outside Marie Antoinette's house (Petit Trianon) — finally some lovely flowers.

It was a day made largely for exhaustion. Exhausting myself by shuffling through room after room with the massive crowds, and then lengthy walks through the gardens. Exhausting both of my camera batteries by taking interminable photos and videos of all the opulence I saw. And by the time I left, that was all I felt, was exhausted. I'd seen things, lots of things, but it wasn't any sort of enriching experience, just an empty, gilded day.

Perhaps that should have turned me off of palaces, but back in England several days later, on Friday, the last full day of my trip, I still headed to Hampton Court Palace. I should have known things were going to be better when I stepped inside of the ticket office with my internet ticket confirmation in hand, and a woman waved me over to a side counter immediately and gave me my ticket, a map, and some other pamphlets.

Base Court, and a Henry VIII impersonator.

My entry, and my visit, were interrupted at times because they were holding a funeral at the palace, for a woman who had been living there on invitation of the Queen. I didn't realize there were people still actively living there, but it certainly intrigued me. And the funeral was an odd but understandable reason to be interrupted; the palace had gone so far as to have special apologetic and explanatory signs posted around the palace grounds.

Grand, but more sedate — Cartoon Gallery in Mary's Apartments.

I'd come to the palace like many, I assume, to see the old stomping grounds of Henry VIII. But what I hadn't realized is that it's actually two palaces, Henry's Tudor-era palace, and a later Baroque addition built by William and Mary, and used up until Georgian times.

The Tudor and Baroque palaces meet, with the arms
of Elizabeth I and William and Mary visible.

Neither of the sections boast anything remotely so grand (or ostentatious) as the royal apartments of Versailles. While they easily fit the definition of palaces, it's in a more sedate, English style — think the rich tones of wood paneling instead of gilt and over-the-top detailing.

Bedchamber in Mary's Apartments.

But in spite of this, I found Hampton Court Palace to be far more enjoyable, and far more interesting. It was enjoyable because it was in reasonable proportions — it felt like just the right amount of palace and grounds to tour — and also because it was far less crowded. Only Henry VIII's apartments were crowded, and even those were not to the point where you literally couldn't move, which did happen at Versailles, so bad were the bottlenecks.

It was far more interesting, though, because it told stories, and those stories were quite interesting. Not fair, you might say, with the exploits of Henry VIII, how could it go wrong in storytelling? And you, Carrie, you might also say, would be quite primed for the experience (albeit not in a completely historically accurate way), having watched four seasons of The Tudors.

Great Hall of Henry VIII's apartments.

Well, yes, I don't deny any of these things. But Hampton Court Palace had an exceedingly interesting story to tell, and it went out and told it. Versailles, meanwhile, I would argue, was sitting on an equally interesting story in Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, but it never managed to shape the experience into storytelling. Meanwhile, at Hampton Court Palace, I found myself interested in monarchs I'd never really known anything about, such as Queen Catherine, who was actually the first queen to live in Mary's apartments (Mary died before they were completed).

Kitchens to feed a palace full of people.

Hampton Court Palace also gave a more complete experience, allowing you to tour the kitchen and begin to get an idea of just what went into preparing meals fit for a king. And then there were the gardens — the open portion was probably a tenth the size of those at Versailles, but again, that was a more manageable proportion.

The Rose Garden, one of the true highlights of my trip.

Coming from the Palace, I began at the magnificent Rose Garden, had a quite decent for a tourist attraction lunch at the Tiltyard Cafe (in one of the towers where the King and other spectators would watch jousting), and then continued on through the Maze, a not-very-wild "Wilderness", and then in to the largest portion of the gardens open to the public, the Great Fountain Garden.

Great Fountain Garden's sculpted trees, with the Baroque palace.

The Great Fountain Garden was all giant sculpted trees, paths, and flowers, all centered around a large fountain, with the Baroque palace in the background. On the other side of the palace complex were another set of daintier, even more sculpted gardens, plants and flowers neatly balanced. These all were much more along the lines of my expectations for royal gardens, and they were uncrowded enough to make walking around in them quite enjoyable.

More lovely gardens, with the Baroque palace.

Super-sculpted gardens, and so many chimneys.

No one would call Hampton Court Palace more grand than Versailles. It is not nearly so large, not nearly so luxe, not nearly so popular. But that — and its stories — were precisely what made it far more enjoyable. I had a lovely walk in the gardens, and I learned things, and as I left, I certainly felt enriched.

More flowers of Hampton Court's gardens.

Maybe I didn't give Versailles the best chance, coming on the day I knew it would be most crowded. But even when you take away the crowds, it just wasn't as well-done, on many different levels. If I had it to do again, I would have maneuvered my itinerary so that I could go to the Louvre first and view Napoleon III's apartments. If I did that, and still had a desire to get my gilt on, only then should I have headed to Versailles.

Napoleon III Apartments at the Louvre.
Probably sufficient for my French opulence quota.

To bring this post to a close, I should reveal that while I was at Hampton Court Palace, I had the song "I'm Henry the Eighth" in my head. You know, the one by Herman's Hermits — "second verse, same as the first!" In my head THE WHOLE TIME I was there.

And I still enjoyed myself more than I did at Versailles.

• All of my Versailles photos
• All of my Hampton Court Palace photos

Cluster France

Requisite Eiffel Tower shot.

This will be taking things a bit out of chronological order, but I don't think I can write about my trip for very long without getting this out of the way: I didn't really like France that much.

It's not that the people were rude, which seems to be an unfair stereotype that Americans have about French people. Now, I might have stacked the deck in my favor by at least learning polite phrases and greetings in French (as well as "I don't understand" and "Do you speak English"), which I think people appreciated. But I found everyone I interacted with, whether they spoke English or not, to be quite polite. Polite, but not necessarily nice. There was none of that enthusiastic friendliness of the people in Greece, or even the kindly-under-a-reserved-shell demeanor of people in England, but they certainly weren't rude.

It wasn't that I had a difficult time getting around or communicating, either. Once I got enough change in euros to use in the machines, which were often only coins or cards (and I assumed the card readers were chip-and-pin only), I had no trouble switching the language to English and buying what I needed for the RER (a cross between suburban rail and D.C.'s Metro) and the Metro (subway). In fact, I'd been in Paris about three hours when I was at a ticket machine and the woman at the machine next to me started asking me questions in French. All I could say was "juh nuh com pruhn pah." What I really wanted to say is "I've been here for less than three hours and you speak French, therefore you should be better at this than me." But that was well beyond my French skills.

Paris Metro.

As for communicating, the longer I was there, the more comfortable I felt using my limited French, and I even picked up a few new words and phrases. The waitress at the cafe I ate at switched to flawless English when I asked her if she spoke it, but I think even if she hadn't, we could have muddled through. I do wish I had learned to count to 10 — I could remember a few numbers from the wee little middle school language class they did for us, but not all of them. Still, by holding up a number of fingers and saying the English word if I didn't know the French, I got what I needed across.

I saw some remarkable things there, so it wasn't that it was boring. I already blogged about the creepy but fantastic experience of walking the catacombs. I also saw Versailles, Notre Dame, and the Louvre, did a boat tour on the Seine, and saw an exhibit on the SS France in the maritime museum. And I also drank some fantastic wine (not exactly surprising), ate some brilliant baked goods, and had a piece of goat cheese that might be the best cheese I've ever eaten.

So where did France go wrong for me? Mostly, it was all of the tourists. When I played my favorite France game — tourist, or Parisian? — on the RER or Metro, I generally felt like the ratio was about half and half. Granted, I was visiting in May, but the ratio was not nearly the same when I played tourist, or Londoner? on the Tube. Somehow, London seemed better able to absorb its tourists.

Part of the problem was simply the number of tourists, combined with a healthy share of laissez-faire attitude from anyone working at any sort of tourist attraction. Take Versailles. Having heard that the ticket lines were ridiculous, I ordered my ticket online in advance. You were supposed to be able to print the ticket from a link in the confirmation email they sent. Except there was no link in the confirmation email. I emailed them asking what I was supposed to do, and they said to go to their Internet desk when I got to Versailles and they would print it for me.

So I get to Versailles, and go to the Internet desk, and there is no one there. Fuming, I got into the ticket line, and also on the phone to their Internet tickets number. Fortunately I did the latter, because the woman I talked to on the phone told me just to go to the entrance, and they would print the ticket for me there. Except you don't just go to the entrance at Versailles. You wait, in a line that snakes up and down the giant courtyard several times. After an hour of waiting in line, I got in to the entrance building and handed a man my Internet confirmation, and he did indeed print my ticket. I also saw that the line was pointlessly long — if they had more than two people taking tickets, and more than one x-ray machine for everyone's things, there would be no line.

Line at Versailles.

I waited in a pointless line at the catacombs, as well, this time for more like an hour and a half. There were signs posted that they could only allow 200 people down in the catacombs at one time, so they were letting very small groups in at a time. But simple math says that if it takes 45 minutes to go through the catacombs, and there are 200 people allowed down there at once, they should have put about 400 people through in the time I was waiting. Uh, not even close. And when I finally got down there, I can definitely tell you there were not 200 other people down there with me. I don't even think I saw ten other people. Live people, that is.

It wasn't just the lines, though. Any time you have that many tourists in one place, a certain number of them are going to be idiots, and when you combine that with a lack of enforcement of any sort of rules, you get people taking flash photography all over Versailles and the Louvre. Now, the signs at Versailles were not the most clear about what you could and couldn't take pictures of. But the signs at the Louvre were exceedingly clear, and done with images, so there should have been no language barrier. Yet there were people taking flash photos all over the place, especially of the Mona Lisa, and I never heard anyone tell them to stop. I can't even imagine the amount of damage all of those paintings get over the course of a year. A guard did tell me to put my camera away at the SS France exhibit at the marine museum, and while I really would have liked pictures of the France artifacts, I respected that at least somebody was enforcing something (albeit something terribly sign-posted). They need to transfer that guy to the Louvre.

Mona Lisa paparazzi.

And that was my other issue with France, especially Paris — it seems like a caricature of itself. All of those tourists, dutifully shuffling along with their flashes turned on, crowding in front of the Mona Lisa (a painting that just doesn't really do it for me), looking at a painting because it's the thing to do. The buskers that get on the Metro and RER trains and play "romantic" accordion music. It seems like a city that exists for tourists, a string of cliches and cafes. That might be why the people in Paris are polite, but not necessarily deep down kind. They seemed to have a sort of big city weariness, to be tired of dealing with too many tourists. I live near Washington D.C., and I get that.

Not my video. I feel obligated to give a busker money if I take a picture or video, and I did not want to give any of these guys money. But this gives an idea of what I'm talking about.

But I don't get that sense in London. Sure, it's a city with plenty of cliches, with its Routemaster buses and Big Ben and all that pomp and circumstance. But it's also a city where you see building cranes on the horizon, progress happening amongst the historical sites. It's a city where you can step out of a Tube station and hear three buskers who've taken the trouble to lug out amplifiers and a drum kit covering Cream. It's a diverse city, and a city where normal people take the Tube to work and to the pub after, spilling out into the street with their pints. It's rock and roll and pubs with real ale.

This is my video. Now THIS is busking.

In short, it's still my favorite city in the world. Sorry, Paris, you were no competition.

Some might say that I should go back, and give it more time to grow on me. But on my last morning there, with a late-morning Eurostar train back to London, I still hadn't seen Notre Dame, and I was debating whether to drop my luggage at the train station and squeeze it in. It would have been less stressful just to stay at the train station and stuff my face with croissant and pan au chocolat, but I realized that if I saw Notre Dame, I wouldn't ever feel like there was something I really wanted to see that I'd missed, like I had to go back someday.

So I dropped my stuff in a locker at the Gare du Nord and went to Notre Dame, and now I'm not sure if I'll ever be back to Paris. Not with the lure of London just two and a half hours away.

• All of my Paris pictures
• All of my Versailles pictures