Day 34 - Giverny and on to Paris

8:30pm - Paris

Today, we bid goodbye to our friend the Kangoo that has faithfully carried us and our stuff for 28 days.  Truthfully, I'm ok with that.  I'm was getting a little tired of driving.  I certainly don't need a car in Paris.  But today we had one more road stop before dropping off the car... we went to see Monet's Gardens in Giverny.  Giverny is a good place to use your own car to visit.  It's somewhat remote.

The gardens were very beautiful, but somewhat crowded this being a Saturday in July.  But we made the most of our brief visit.

After Giverny, we got the bags organized and drove to the car return center at CDG (about an hour away).  I was expecting to have to wait around, but it was very efficient.  I turned the car in, they pulled a van around and before we knew it, we were picking our way through the RER station to get on a train to Paris.  By the time we figured out the tickets and got through the gate... there was a train pulling into the station.  Less than 15 minutes after driving into the airport, we were on a train leaving it.  It was very efficient -- so efficient, I really don't have any pictures to commemorate the parting.  Just the arrive at CDG and on the train leaving.

The train ride into the city took longer than the car return.  We made quite a site trudging all our stuff on the train and through the station.  I think I've decided to take a cab back to the airport a week from tomorrow when we return... for the five of us, the cost difference isn't that much.  This just validates my decision to not do lots of train segments on this trip.  There were tears and drama getting through the gate at CDG to get on the RER... I shudder to think about winding through multiple train stations with a tried, hungry, cranky 6-yr-old lugging her possessions.

We met our landlord at the apartment in the 6th arrondissement.  It's in a very central location, walkable to most everything and certainly "metro-able" to the rest.

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Feeling a little spent after our day, we decided to eat "in" -- I ducked down to the local market just a block away, and picked up a bottle of wine and some munchies...

which we supplemented with something more like a dinner a little later.

Later, when the girls went shopping, Charlie and I ducked up out catch some quick sights and do a little reconnoitering of our neighborhood.

We're sitting around now catching up on laundry and making plans for what to do with our first full day in Paris tomorrow.

Day 33 - Versailles and Chartres at night

11:30pm - Chartres

Today we went to Versailles.

I'd booked and ticketed a guided tour in English ahead of time and printed the tickets on my computer.  I highly recommend that approach.  It allowed us to skip the long ticket line.  While we waited for our tour, we walked through the gardens.

When it was time for our tour, we were shown to a comfortable waiting room and got hooked up with our headsets.  Then we were shown the private parts of the palace associated with the king's chambers.  It was nice since our group of 20 or so was alone in the rooms as we went.  We got to enter the chapel and sit in the theatre... the theatre is not part of the public tour at all.  That was cool.

When the private part of the tour was over, we were allowed to go through the public tour.  I had forgotton what a cattle call that is...  they do let throngs of people at a time.  It was crowded and my least favorite part of the whole Versailles experience.  But seeing the Hall of Mirrors is cool.  It is worth putting up with the throngs to get to that point.

After we got out of the palace, Laura and Katie went to see more gardens.  Charlie, Elodie and I had had enough, so we hung out for awhile and played a mean game of "Alphabet".

We returned to Chartres for dinner.  Since we'd neglected to make reservations, our choices were limited.  We ended up at Roma Nostra.  We actually quite enjoyed our meal there despite the terrible reviews on Trip Advisor.

After dinner, we went for a night time walk around the cathedral.  I'm glad we did.  We'd completely missed the light show, Chartres en Lumière, otherwise.  It was spectacular! Chartres is really alive at night.  There was a very cool 10-piece band (including bagpipes) playing in the market as we headed home.  It was a great ending to our time in Chartres.

Tomorrow we head to Giverny and then Paris!