Mel Does Lady Di

Just when did Versailles become a theme park?

After queuing for 20 minutes to get our tickets we queued for another 20 minutes to get in with the purcased tickets (going through security tighter than at an international airport) we then looked at another queue for the dreaded audioguides (they came with the tickets we purchased for all te various parts of the palace and estate; I asked if we could have them without, but no) which looked like at least a 30 minute wait, and so decided to skip that, go straight to the gardens, and return for the palace section later.

There are strange set of double standards was revealed. At one point I went down some steps for a closer look at a fountain, only to be sternly warned by a hiding member of staff that I couldn't go down there. The surface was exactly the same as one the 2 foot higher level, but rules are rules and I hopped back up. And ten we started coming across golf buggies. All over the bloody place. Playing music, or loud audio tours. Specially designed for the hard of walking they would be driven at a snail's pace past a fountain or view, with one occupant snapping away, before the move onto the next must-see object.

All of this while impressively loud renaissance style music was being pumped out of (presumably) massive hidden speakers, which mingled clashingly with different music being played at specific areas of the gardens. It just all felt 'wrong', and when the segways appeared there was a feeling of a straw extra being placed on a dromedary's back. Maybe it was all to give you the same feeling that Marie Antionette felt, so that when you reached her oasis of calm, a strange fake peasant 'hamlet', you were able to appreciate fully the tranquil calm that suddenly descended. After queuing for 15 minutes to get in of course.

Mel has warned me about making sweeping stereotypical assumptions about Marie Antoinette until I've read up some more about her (I at least know of the misapprehension most people have about the 'Let them eat cake' misquote), but what's certainly true is that the hamlet is a surreal place. A feeling which was confirmed on a wander around the palace itself after finding a portrait of the comedian Alan Davies on the walls; and seeing that StevieFish had gone through some sort of time machine, and reappeared in Versailles a good 20 years older (and French)...

Anyway, we rounded off the day with a fantastic meal in Chi-Fan, a gloriously eclectic Thai and Chinese restaurant. If I tell you we ate dinner sat on a table under the shadow of a lifesize alien from Alien rendered (incredibly well) in welded car, motorbike and bike parts, with a mish-mash of Asian, movie sci-fi and Tintin memorabilia all around the small room then you might see why I liked the place so much. And the food lived up to it all - although if anything it needed a good chunk of spice added, I'm not sure if the French go in for spicy food that much. It was the tastiest meal of the trip, and the best value by far. French food is good, but really it amounts often to little more than a lump of meat in a sauce with some veg. Sacrilege I know, but sometimes you just want something a little more 'inventive' of thoughtful, and I can honestly say the good to excellent restaurants I've eaten at in the UK (a fair list) match up confidently next to their French counterparts.

But tomorrow it's back on the ferry, and by 1pm UK time we'll be back on home soil. That in itself will be nice (nicer than the drive north back to Edinburgh in one hop), as will the four days after without any work before another dreaded Monday morning. But I'm feeling pretty refreshed by this trip, il y a des choses a faire quand je rentre...