Oh my God, my legs were so sore from all the sprinting the day before.

We started our morning around 7 AM and rode down to the basement of our hotel to try the breakfast. It was a cute little setup with a pain au chocolat station and small juices. We ordered cappuccinos along with scrambled eggs and bacon. The eggs were really good, and the cappuccinos might have been some of our favorites of the whole trip. We couldn’t quite pin down what made them so good, but I think it was the fresh milk. They were milkier than a typical cappuccino, and we loved it so much that we each ordered another one.

After breakfast, we headed back upstairs to get ready for our next big day: a guided tour of Versailles. We took the metro to the meeting point and, once again, cut it a little close. We were technically on time for the 9:30 AM meeting, just not the recommended 10 to 15 minutes early. Thankfully, it was nothing like the chaos from the day before, and we found the group pretty easily.

We got on the metro with our group and began the 30 minute ride over to Versailles. Once the metro arrived, we started the walk over. It was super misty so we didn’t get to see the usual view to the palace.

Apparently Versailles originally began as a hunting lodge, built simply because the horseback ride from the Louvre took three to four hours and wasn’t exactly convenient. What started as a practical solution slowly evolved into one of the most extravagant palaces in the world, and walking through it, you can immediately see how it became a symbol of everything that eventually went wrong.

The palace is filled with marble, with 136 different types used throughout. Much of it was later removed to install parquet flooring, but the scale of wealth is still overwhelming. Standing inside Versailles, it becomes easy to understand why the French Revolution gained momentum. This level of luxury existed while much of France struggled to survive. Unfortunately a lot of the furniture from this time is either destroyed or pawned off. The revolutionaries destroyed furniture in anger, then they realized how valuable it was and began stealing and selling it instead. 

One of the largest rooms we visited features the only ceiling in Versailles painted entirely on canvas rather than directly onto plaster. The ceiling depicts Hercules, chosen deliberately as a symbol of strength, power, and heroism. 

After this room, we entered the room where you could see into the King’s Chapel. It was so opulent.

Nearby, we saw some original furniture that is more than 350 years old, made from ebony and gold. This space once functioned as a salon for drinking and socializing. At this time, hot chocolate was especially popular, a luxury introduced when King Louis XIV married a Spanish princess who brought chocolate with her to France. 

Many of the rooms were once covered entirely in fabric. Velvet wall coverings were swapped out for satin in the spring, and the velvet wasn’t reused when winter returned. There are over 2,000 walls in Versailles!! Even the walls reflected seasonal luxury.

We walked into the Venus Room next, where the king is depicted dressed in Roman attire. Louis XIV frequently sent artists to Italy, drawing heavy inspiration from classical art. In this room, some of the statues are actually painted directly onto the walls using a trompe-l’œil technique, meant to trick the eye into seeing depth and dimension.

The chandeliers throughout the palace are not original. Today they are glass with electric candles, but originally they were crystal and held real flames. At its height, Versailles required about 20,000 candles per day. Each candle burned for roughly four hours, and a single candle cost the equivalent of two days’ wages for a working person. It’s hard to wrap your head around that kind of contrast.

We passed through the royal bedroom, and for some reason, I’m obsessed with seeing how rooms were set up back in the day. I think I just like the everyday life aspect. The bed was super tall because it needed to be offset from the marble floor which was cold.

The next room we visited was the throne room. You can still see silver hooks where a tapestry was held behind it! At one point in history, silver was actually more valuable than gold. Very little silver remains at Versailles because one king ordered it all melted down to raise money.

Our tour guide said these are the three sentences to remember if you remember anything about Versailles: Louis XIV built it. Louis XV enjoyed it. Louis XVI paid for it with his life. He was beheaded during the French Revolution, along with his wife, Marie Antoinette.

We moved on the Hall of Mirrors next. Even on a foggy day when you can barely see outside, the room is still breathtaking. This space later became historically significant when the Treaty of Versailles was signed here in 1919!

From there, we moved into the Queen’s Apartments. What an amazing room. Her bed is larger than the king’s, which feels ironic given the term “king bed.” When they slept together, the king always came to her room, never the other way around.

The room next door is the only one in Versailles where all of the original furniture was found intact. This was the queen’s meeting room, where she received ambassadors and ministers.

Restoration work is ongoing in the Grand Couvert room. We saw a painting of Marie Antoinette that  originally included a fourth baby, but just before the artist finished, the child died and had to be painted out of the bassinet.

As we walked through Versailles, we even saw the same coronation painting we had seen earlier at the Louvre, tying the two visits together and making history feel less like separate chapters and more like a continuous story. And we got to see Pauline’s pink dress, instead of the blue at the Louvre!

Our tour ended here, so we spent some time shopping for souvenirs and smelling a few perfumes in the gift shop before making our way toward the gardens.

It was so cold that I insisted we take the little mini train, the Petit Train, instead of walking.

After a short wait, we rode over to La Flottille, a restaurant tucked into the gardens that looks like a greenhouse.

I ordered my first (surprising it took this long!) French onion soup of the trip, and it was absolutely amazing. Paired with how freezing I was, it couldn’t have been more perfect. 

For my main, I had a beef filet, which was also incredible. We ended the meal with profiteroles and two cappuccinos. The menu mentioned that the ice cream was artisanal and made by a master ice cream maker, so obviously we had to order it.

After lunch, we hopped back on the Petit Train and studied the map to figure out how to get to Marie Antoinette’s estate. It was only two stops away. We decided to skip the Grand Trianon and go straight to the Petit Trianon because we were absolutely freezing. We had assumed most of the day would be spent indoors and dressed accordingly, which turned out to be a big mistake.

We visited Marie Antoinette’s cottage-style hamlet, which she built to feel more like a common village. 

Jordan looked it up and found that many of the elements were purely decorative, like the water wheel that didn’t actually power anything and the guard tower. It was basically her version of Disneyland, which honestly made it even more interesting.

On our way back from Marie’s peasant village, we got to spot some new birds! I got an Eurasian Jay logged, and we saw the same parakeets that we saw all over Florence and Rome. 

From there, we walked back toward the Petit Trianon and toured the château itself. Inside, we passed through a large formal dining room, and right next to it was a much smaller, more intimate one. 

We got to see some other cool rooms, including a bedroom and a kitchen, and some dining sets they used to use. 

The metro ride back was uneventful in the best way. We found the station easily, and since the lines only run outward from Versailles, there was no stress about directions. The ride took about 30 minutes, and we just sat back and relaxed.

Once we got back, we walked past a North Face right by our hotel and had to go in since we had been so cold all day. I ended up buying a fuzzy beanie which is soo comfy.

Purchase complete, we stopped at the hotel to grab extra sweaters and decide on dinner. We ended up going with sushi and walked to a nearby spot called Blueberry.

All of the rolls were super unique, and we ordered four to share: the Pink Yakuza, the Futomaki Transsiberien, the Chicken Pot, and the Gatsby. Everything was excellent, but the Pink Yakuza was my favorite. It was light, fresh, and the flavors worked so well together. It was also nice to take a break from French food, especially since this isn’t the kind of sushi we can get back in Tallahassee.

After dinner, we walked over to a bar that always seemed packed during dinner time. We managed to grab a table and spent some time people-watching while sipping Moscow mules. We considered ordering another round but decided against it since we wanted to get up at a reasonable time the next morning. There was still so much on our must-see list, and we didn’t want to fall behind.