Posting from Paris encore. The weather was the same as it was the day before, pretty hot. P2, bless his stuffing, isn’t taking the heat very well. Grunty claims he was made to take the heat. I beg to differ (he's got a flammable tag on his derriere, don't tell him I looked). I woke up early this morning (not this this morning, the morning of which I'm referring to, I guess I should say "this one morning"...) planning to spend the entire day at Versailles, the infamous palace of graphic French lore.
Getting there wasn’t so bad, although Versailles was basically the last stop on that particular line. The place was packed like no other. Entrance fee was 25 euro for the grand pass. That included the interior palace, the gardens, and another section of the estate that I think I went to but am not sure which part it was since there was just so much to see. It was crazy! Naturally P2 opted another day indoors in the safety of the air-conditioned rooms.With nothing else to do, the guy’s been watching French television all day. He was telling me about this Family Feud knockoff they have going on over here. At the final part, where one family member goes off into the sound-proof room, they music on for them and they always seem to make a spectacle of themselves. Show boaters all of them. 
There were masses of people. I mean masses upon masses, people from everywhere. I'm sure I heard every major language spoken that day. The chateau itself was really nice, bright colors were really popular back then (notice the color palette between rooms). They had a lot of articles from the original castle out on display, and artwork that decorated the castle was gathered into a hallway for display.
After I went through the entire chateau (avec une audioguide), I headed out to the garden for a packed lunch. Sitting out there, watching the masses wander and take pictures I couldn’t help but feel as if I were in Disneyland. The sheer size of the place and the meticulous care given to the shrubbery made the whole thing very surreal. Nature a la France as a guide colloquially put it. Grunty loved the gardens, the castle not so much. Oh my gosh, and of course, the fountains were the main attraction. They were only turned on for a few hours each day as to not overtax the stone sculptures which are surprisingly in good condition (probably not so surprising, considering the amount of income they’re raking in). Here’s a picture of the Encelade. 
The whole thing’s on a kind of grid system, symmetrical if you look at it from the back of the castle. Each fountain has a name and a theme. My favorite one would be the Colonnade grove, probably because it resembles an amphitheatre.
Second to that would be The Encelade Grove which uses volcanic rock or something that looks similar, to depict the fall of Enceladus (head honcho of the Titans). There were some other groves without fountains that I liked. The Queen’s grove is the one that comes into mind the most, because it felt a lot more like a forest than a garden. There were even paths one could take through the trees to bench ways under lots of foliage, it felt a lot like camping. I wasn’t able to see all the gardens before time ran out, but I think I got to most of them. There was some kind of super fountain show at the end, but I couldn’t’ see it really well since it was too crowded. Oh well.
They closed the gardens after that. I would’ve stayed for the night show, (which I regret not doing right now) but was too tired to do so. I headed home after that. This is definitely something you should not miss when you’re in Paris.
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