Paris Day Trip: Versailles

They suggest not travelling to Versailles on Tuesdays because it is not open on Mondays and can be quite busy - True story. Like everyone else however, we ignored the suggestion and thought Tuesday would be a good day because a.) we had the Paris Pass allowing us to skip the queue anyway and b.) My mom wanted to be able to use her second instalment of the hop on hop off tour which comes with the Pass for Wednesday and Thursday. But let me tell you, it was busy and probably something I would not choose to do again unless it was low season. That being said it is VERY beautiful and quite a sight to see with all the grandeur of King Louis XIV and later, Napoleon Bonaparte. The huge palace and pristine grounds are home to some very significant historical events, not to mention the artwork.

A note about "Tours" should you find yourself thinking about going on this easy day trip:
We, ourselves had originally booked a tour through Viator.com at the exorbitant price of $119 per person. This was to include travel to and from Versailles and a gourmet picnic lunch along the River. We later cancelled, however, because they wanted to charge the same price for the children who would have been free to enter any of the attractions as well as on the train, and unless I got to drink their wine, I am pretty sure would not have eaten their money's worth on the picnic. After researching a couple of other tours we decided to suck it up and navigate our own way, which, was turned out to be completely easy and stress free. We were able to catch the RER (train) from Notre Dame and because it was one train there and one train back filled with hundreds of other tourists going to the same place, there was no mistaking where to get off. From the train station it was a short walk to the Palace. Again, the Paris Pass came in quite handy as it began to rain once we got there and were able to quickly get in line to enter as opposed to having to wait in line for tickets.
Speaking of rain, I was also very thankful we didn't go with the original tour because there was no way we were picnicking along the river in the rain (it was a nice thought)....we went to McDonalds instead :)