7/9: Biking around Versailles

Kiera, Luke, and I (Mike) went to Versailles on July 9th with the Coatneys. (Ryan’s much healthier now after stomach problems from before through after the Versailles day.)

The first picture is Kiera and Luke with their friends outside of the chateau. The second and third are inside the chateau. The portrait in the third is America’s favorite fighting Frenchman, whom Luke was surprised to learn was white. Don’t worry, the chateau was a super opulent way to tell Parisiens of Louis XIV’s era who lacked a sewage system that the country and its people were the property of the monarchy. Louis XV lives there the longest, before dying of likely complications from syphilis. Of course, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were the last and maybe most famous residents.

After the chateau, we biked around the man-made Grand Canal that formed a giant cross on the far side of Versailles’s garden. To give you some idea of the scale, we biked about nine miles that day, and around the canals was the bulk of it. At a local market area, we had picked up some bread, meats, cheeses, pastries, wine, and a beer that didn’t make it. We stopped to picnic along the way around the canal. The fourth and fifth pictures are from this part of the day. In the fourth picture, Luke faced backwards because that was the style of the eighteenth century in the French royal court.

After the canals, we toured a distinct smaller palace that was for the courts extra special VIPs on a given day because why not? Next up was another distinct large structure for Marie Antoinette to hang out in during the day. It had a life sized doll house in the giant garden out back complete with a miller’s house and place to milk or sheer sheep. These sheep were dyed on a daily basis so that their color matched that of Marie Antoinette’s dress. The life-sized doll village was adjacent to a small pond that obviously was man-made because it would’ve been a little gauche to find a natural pond already there. I would’ve included a picture of this village, but you guys got that Lafayette portrait photo instead.