Paris - Day ????? who cares anymore? it's PARIS!

Well, actually, this post is about Versailles, but whatever.

Dudes, if you have an abundance of airmiles, this is what I recommend doing:
a) plan a trip to Paris when flights are cheap
b) rent an apartment in the city that is reasonable and that has internet and a washer and dryer
c) go on your 10 year anniversary (*or any anniversary. Or your birthday. Or because you are hot.)
d) Use all the airmiles you have accumulated in the previous year to take a one-night's stay at a 5 star Westin hotel located 10 feet from the Queen's gate to the gardens at Versailles.
e) Pay a surcharge to upgrade your room and get breakfast and dinner included.

These, my friends, are the steps to eternal happiness and bliss. Or at least they are the steps to a very very fine evening.

We stayed at the Westin Trianon Palace and Spa. It was literally steps away from one of the gates leading to the garden (actually, our gate was closest to the Grand and Petit Trianons and Marie Antoinette’s “domaine” – for those of you who have seen the movie). This was our view of the palace gardens:

Those are sheep there. SHEEP!

I have rarely in my life had the opportunity to stay at a truly luxury hotel, but it is soooooo worth it. The people smile at you even when your hair looks like crap. They apologize for everything. They wipe your ass. No, they don’t do that, but I bet they would if you asked them to. And you wouldn't even have to ask in a nice way.

We arrived, dropped our bags, and then went off to explore the gardens, since they were announcing rain for the following day. We were enamored by the sheep on our walk to the Grand Trianon, probably because I am addicted to animals, and also because I love the scene in the movie when M-A is playing with her little daughter and the baby lamb. We didn’t see any lambs, but we saw this guy, who had a bad haircut:

The grounds are so beautiful, and so well maintained it is incredible. We ate lunch by the Grand Canal, which was fun except for these people:

who caused a raucous the whole way down the canal splashing and yelling.

After lunch we took our books to the other side of the canal, which was in the shade, and read/napped. We originally situated ourselves a bit closer to the palace than we were supposed to, and eventually the French RCMP came and shooed us away.

After our nap, etc, we went into town to buy the essentials: wine, iced tea. The end. Actually, we probably would have bought two bottles of wine but I forgot to bring my bag with our extra cash and we only had like 9 euro.

At the hotel, I took a big long bubble bath here with a glass of wine:

While SB took a nap in the Heavenly Bed:

Sidenote:

I love the Heavenly Bed. I would love to marry the Heavenly Bed. If anyone would like to buy me a Heavenly Bed, please do so. It is so comfortable. The mattress is perfect. The linens are soft, and satiny. I did not want to leave that Heavenly Bed. Not even one bit. A photo:

I will see you again one day, HB. XOXO

End Sidenote.

After cleaning up and making out with the Heavenly Bed, we had dinner at the Veranda restaurant. It was fantastic, except for one thing. We had taken the “dinner included” package, and no one at the restaurant seemed to know what that entailed. It was annoying when we were ordering, annoying when we waited for the bill (drinks were not included and we had a bottle of wine), and annoying when we saw a small surcharge on our room charges the next day. But I was able to put all that aside (SB was too, but not before he detailed our issues to the front desk clerk, in actually a very nice way.) The food was friggin amazing. SB had: seared tuna with marinated leeks and onion, then a chicken cassoulet with green beans, onion and cabbage and finished with a cheese plate. I had: tomato chevre tarte with cucumber pesto with this mindblowing bottom crust of nuts and something else that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but that was extremely pleasant, lamb neck (I know, I had a hard time with the “neck” part of that for some reason) with the BEST damned mashed potatoes ever and probably something else on the plate that I forget, then, THEN my friends, there was an apple crème brulee, which was not your regular little broiled crème in a pot. Non non. It was a little free-standing pillar, with a scoop of the most flavorful apple sorbet I have ever had. It may have been infused with some sort of crazy apple cocaine. And the whole thing was flanked by thinly sliced dried apple chips.

As if this dinner was not enough, SB had brought a bottle of champagne with him which we had up in the room to celebrate. Then I tucked into the Heavenly bed and had the best sleep ever! And by “ever” I mean “in my whole live”. And by “in my whole life” I am probably including the womb, because I tend to be a cool sleeper and I hear the womb is quite warm.

Tomorrow I will post about our visit to the Palace.