Paris Day 2

We woke up early the second morning for our next tour with Fat Tire Bike Tours, a day trip to Versailles.  We met at the Fat Tire office near the Eiffel Tour and had a 10 minute bike ride to the train station.  They had us all load up on the train with our bikes and take the train 25 miles to Versailles.  When we arrived we unloaded our bikes and biked through the town to an outdoor market where we bought all the supplies we needed for a picnic lunch.

With plenty of bread, cheese, fruit, nuts, wine, and a rotisserie chicken packed away in our backpacks we headed out on our bikes for a ride to the palace.  

Along the way we stopped to see a glimpse of the village that Marie Antionette had built for herself so that she could pretend that she was a commoner.  

Then we continued on our way around the grand canal.

And then stopped at the end of the canal for a picnic lunch.

After lunch we made our way up to the palace.

We were able to take a few hours to tour the palace and the gardens surrounding it.

After a few hours we hopped back on our bikes for a ride to the train station.  We loaded back onto the train and road the 25 minutes back to Paris.

Then we rode back to the Fat Tire office and dropped off our bikes.  From there we walked over to the Eiffel Tour and decided to spread our blanket back out and finish off the rest of our wine, bread, and cheese from lunch.

We decided to stick around there and watch the Eiffel Tour light up.

Then we headed back to the hotel real quick to grab some warmer clothes and replenish our wine supply.  And then we once again returned to the Eiffel Tour to watch the lights go off and twinkle.  We thought it was going to happen at 11:00 so we all stayed up waiting for it.  11:00 came and the lights twinkled but the main lights didn't go off, so it was no different than 9:00 or 10:00.  Then we concluded that it would probably go off at midnight so the kids decided to stay for one more hour to see the show.  Well midnight came and it was the same show as before so we gave up and walked back to the hotel to go to bed.

It was a fun, long day and I'm pretty sure we were out the second our heads hit our pillows!