July 18, 2009

Today we woke up and had free time to catch up on laundry before we head to London. So that’s exactly what we did. It was nice and after we were finished we went back and started packing. I wanted to get everything done before we headed out to Fontaine Bleu because they told us that we probably would not be back until around two A.M. and then we had to catch the bus to the train station around nine-thirty. So I was able to get packed and check the internet for a bit and do some blogging. Then I went to this Lebanese restaurant and picked up a chicken wrap/sandwich thing who knows? Whatever it was it war really delicious. Went back to the hotel lobby and met up with the group and headed out to Fontaine Bleu. Once we got there we took an audio tour around the Palace. It was a shorter tour but it was still full of history and art. I was getting a little toured out and I’m really looking forward to London so that I can check out more modern art. We boarded the bus after the tour and rode it to a grocery store and bought some stuff for a picnic before we went to Vaux Le Vicomte. Erika and I bought a couple bottles of champagne and a baguette, cheese, meat slices, salad, and a dessert cookie. It was a really nice picnic and we met a cute couple from Paris who said that they have lived there for twenty-seven years and this was the first time that they had been to Vaux Le Vicomte. Unfortunately it started raining so we did the Palace portion of the tour first. Then we went out to the gardens and walked around and they were playing opera music and you could see candles burning bright from the Palace it was priceless. Vaux Le Vicomte was a Palace built for Nicolas Fouquet and it was such a beautiful Palace that made Fontaine Bleu look less glamorous. This really made Louis XIV angry because he didn’t want to be outdone, jealous if you will. Well one night Nicolas Fouquet had a huge party and invited all of the important people at the time to come and wine and dine and Louis XIV suspected that he must have been embezzling money and that’s how he could afford this amazing Palace. Anyway Louis XIV had Nicolas Fouquet arrested and imprisoned. After that Louis wanted to build a new and greater Palace and that is where Versailles comes in to play. It is said that Vaux Le Vicomte was built on three villages that had been destroyed and the people that lived in the villages were then employed at Vaux for maintenance and whatever else. I found the history to be very interesting. After the tour we went and boarded the bus and went back to the hotel and everybody passed out except me. I couldn’t sleep because our bus driver was playing such great music like ABBA and Rod Stewart it was hilarious to me so when we got back to the hotel I tried to blog and check internet but fell asleep. And that is that.