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I caught the train down to Versailles yesterday.

It’s very easy to get to Versailles from the train station: it’s only a five minute walk and you just follow the flood of tourists.

Even on a weekday in the dead of winter, there were still quite a number of people in the chateau: I identifed groups of Japanese, Italian, Spanish, and Irish tourists, and that was all before I even had my ticket! It took close to four hours to cover just two of the available circuits: 1) the King’s and Queen’s state apartments and 2) the chapel and opera house. As a result, I passed on the Dauphin’s apartments in favor of wandering in the gardens and visiting the Trianons.

Once in the gardens, the crowds thinned out considerably. In part, it was likely that there was so much more space. The chilly and drizzly weather undoubtedly accounted for the rest of the diminuation of crowds: there was hardly anyone at either the Grand or the Petit Trianon.

The ornamentation of virtually every flat surface becomes cloying after a while: I wonder that the inhabitants could endure all that everlasting gold leaf! I don’t wonder at all at Marie Antoinette’s preference for the Petit Trianon.

BTW, no pictures. Sorry ’bout that, but I inadvertently set my camera to video (not sure how I managed that, mind), and the first "picture" I took ate up all the space on the memory card. It wasn’t until I got back home that I figured out what had happened. And no, I couldn’t find any usable screenshots from my video.

I had occasion yesterday to visit the Institut Catholique de Paris (where I plan to be starting my business French course later this month). I haven’t been in that neighborhood before, so I did a little exploring.

I found Saint Sulpice, which has been suffering from unwanted notoriety as a result of The Da Vinci Code. More recently though, I had read an article, by Rick Steves in the travel section of sfgate.com, about the organ and organist. As a result, I’ve had it in mind to venture out that way for Sunday Mass some week, but just haven’t gotten to it yet. In the meantime, I have to say that it’s not a particularly attractive church, though I can’t put my finger on just what I dislike about it.

The Jardin du Luxembourg and the Palais du Luxembourg are also in that general area:

The Jardin is, according to my guidebook, a popular weekend hangout for families, but on a winter weekday, it’s pretty bleak. The Palais is now the seat for the French Senate, so it’s not generally open to visitors. I’m not sure if the Senate is sitting just now, although I saw lights on and there are police patrolling:

I also found a perfectly scrumptious bookstore: Librairie La Procure. The books are all in French, of course, but I still had a marvelous time wandering about and dreaming of the day when my French is good enough to justify a buying spree!

The downside to visiting Montmartre, as I did this afternoon, is that around the Place du Tertre especially, it’s hard to avoid the hordes of artists, all clamoring to sketch your portrait (for a fee, of course). As with panhandlers, the usual trick is to avoid eye contact and to refuse to get drawn into conversation.

That said, I’m not sure how it happened, but I ended up having my portrait sketched; he started even though I had kept walking. So, yes I finally did stop. It is, at any rate, a flattering likeness:

(That’s my fuzzy Cossack hat, in case you’re wondering.)

It’s not way obvious from the picture,

but those white specks are snowflakes. They’re melting as they hit the ground, though, so there’ll not be any snowmen (what’s the French for "snowman", I wonder) in the streets.

The bakery on the corner is the one with the longest lines on Sunday mornings: I don’t know that it proves that it’s the best in the neighborhood, but it seems a reasonable proxy.

I’ve been popping in a few times a week to get my lunchtime sandwiches and my Sunday morning pain du chocolat (chocolate croissant) and the occasional loaf of bread. The staff there are very nice and the bread is tasty. French sandwiches are more about the bread than the filling, and I find that suits me well. They also have other savory baked goods, such as quiches, pizza, lasagne, etc., as well as a generous selection of pastries and candies. Fortunately, I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, so I’ve resisted the temptation.

Until today, when I got a millefeuille (AKA napoleon) to go with my lunch. It was beautifully flaky and custardy. There is, however, no chocolate involved, so expect I’ll be able to resume resisting the temptation. Although there’s no shortage of chocolate-rich pastries from which to choose.