You too can go to Fontainebleau

So Versailles was a total bust...I believe I've gone over that.  And after a few days the feeling that I had just been stuffed into a sausage has not subsided all that much.  So I will admit I was not super excited to see my mother in laws face light up at the prospect of going to another Chateau.  But her license plate says "It's not easy being a Princess" so she is not someone to want to miss a castle.  So off we went.  To get to Fountainebleau you have to take the metro to one of the train stations and then get on a train and head about 30 miles outside Paris.  Then take a bus.  This sounds easy enough.  I had done some serious research and knew kind of what I was trying to do.  Even still I got on the train not totally sure it was the right one.   But I asked someone who gave me an emphatic thumbs up.
So for we went.  It's nice to get out of the city.  You realize how long you have been there when you are overly impressed with dark forests, and wide open fields.  We made it to Fontainebleau and had to take a bus into the city.  The Chateau is beautiful and vast.  I got audio guides for Marcia and the boys and quickly realized the girls were going to make our life hard if we did not get them one, so back to the rental counter we went.  The best part was there was no one there.  Seriously after Versailles it was like making it to heaven.  There were whole rooms that did not have another soul in them.  I don't know if it was the rain(it was pouring) or what but it was absolutely perfect as far as crowds are concerned.  We took our time looking at stuff but slowly Marcia started to move slower and the kids faster.  This reached a critical point and I had to cut our tour short.  We had already set off one alarm when Austin decided to lean into Napoleons bedroom a little too far so I thought I would not press our luck.  So I told Marcia to take her time and we would meet her at the Cafe when she was done.  The kids and I drank hot chocolate and ate crepes.  Austin has decided that my crepes are better, I agree.  I was not too worried about losing Marcia...after all we were at a castle if we left her there I think she would have died a happy woman.  But she did find us and joined us for a diet coke.
After a little while we went outside in the rain where the kids used the girls leashes and pretended that they were horses.  Marcia and I joked that we would just pretend we did not know who's kids they were.    I was just about to say how amazed I was that no one had fallen down when Hannah took a spill.


We made it back to the train station with ease and got to the station 3 minutes before the next train back to Paris.  I guess we had paid our dues at Versailles because it could not have gone better.
Todd made it back from Munich where he had fun with Aaron.

Not really sure why the sad face from Jackson.

Marcia in princess heaven

Hannah

The "Richards" tea and chocolate

Fontaineblaeu

Sierra looking like she owns the Train

Not my children acting like horses

Rain keeping everyone else away

At Versailles this room would have had 1500 people in it.

 

So today was sadly our last day here with Marcia.  So we had to take a good hard look at what was left on our "list" of things to see.  Amazingly we had seem almost everything, which was a lot!!  So first we hit up the Arch du Triumph.  The really amazing thing to see is the traffic.  As we stood there watching traffic and taking pictures of the Arch we realized there was a group of Asian tourists taking pictures of us, well the twins to be specific.  This happens quite a lot.  I think twins are lucky in Asian cultures so a lot of times(sometimes daily) I will see people shaping pictures of them.  I just found it funny that as we all looked one way at this huge Arch they are standing with their backs to it.  From there we moved on to Sacre Coeur.  This is known as the Ice Cream church to our kids.  So we got there, Marcia did her requisite grand kids tourist trinket shopping and we plopped down on a bench for a snack.  The kids were enjoying a small park there, mainly they were chasing the pigeons until one pooped on Austin.  I told Marcia when I saw Austin start to play with the girls on the play ground that I gave him 2 minutes before he climbed onto the roof of the pay structure...30 seconds later there he was.  Then we went up a small tram that have there that allows you to avoid the many steps they have to the top of the hill where the church is.  The view from the top is pretty cool, although it was rather hazy today.  Marcia opted for riding the tram down and the kids raced her down taking the stairs that run along the side.  

I decided to turn the camera on them.

Marcia looking touristed out, Hannah looking crazed.

 We got home and were a little unsure what to do for the rest of the evening.  Marcia offered to take us to dinner so that sounded fun as we rarely if ever go out here.  We found a cute typical cafe and had dinner.  The kids were very good.  We then walked to the Eiffel tower.  Marcia, Todd and the boys went up.  The girls and I hung out in the park for a while and then walked home.  Actually it's midnight and Marcia and the boys still are not home.  It's been very fun having Marcia.  She has been such a trooper and has impressed us all with her ability to keep up.  We are a well conditioned walking machine and by the end she was right there with us.  We will miss her when she leaves.

Made of Chocolate.