Thursday 10 January - Versailles

We took the train from St-Lazare to Versailles Rive Droite. It was one of the new trains, very smooth ride.

The old stainless steel trains are being phased out

We like visiting Versailles but prefer to avoid the crowds so we enter by a gate in the country and don't go very close to the Chateau itself.

Sheep may safely graze although the magpies like to ride on their backs. The sheep don't seem to mind the magpies picking items out of their wool

 As soon as we entered the park we could hear the parrots (peruches) which moved in about two years ago. They provide plenty of interest but we were told they prey on the smaller birds. We walked down to the Grand Canal and decided to have lunch at La Flotille where we have been several times before. We assured the server that we didn't want "un snack" and were seated at a nice location by the window where we could watch the action on the lake as well as the birdlife.

Marie Antoinette may well have said "Let them eat foie gras". The portion was very large and extremely good with a delicious onion chutney

Mary had scallops with snow peas and vegetable chips.

I had the lamb tagine

We think there had been a mix up in the kitchen over the tarte tatin as it had both ice cream and chantilly cream - the menu gave a choice of one or the other

The baba au rhum had a lot of rum in the sauce but there was a phial of rum which I injected into the sponge

It was a very good meal which was well paced with a Chablis for Mary and a Saumur for me.

We then had a long walk along part of the lake (it is about 7 kilometers completely around). At one point the parrots were making a lot of noise and we saw a large flock of them take off and whirl around.  Close to the exit the sheep were well spaced out in their grass cropping, then, all of a sudden, they took off and made a mad rush back to the other end of the field for no apparent reason.  We eventually made our way back to the station.  The train took us to Viroflay Rive Droite where we took the elevator down to the tramway T6 station.

The rubber tired tram took us all the way back to Chatillon - Montrouge where we took the metro back to Villiers with a quick change at St-Lazare

The tram has good acceleration and the synchronization with traffic lights was good but the ride was more lively than a steel wheeled tram.  The metro line 13 was running at two minute intervals, this being rush hour. Station stops were pared down to 4-5 seconds at most places.

It was a good day. We took advantage of the dry weather which was better than the occasional shower with some heavy rain of yesterday.