Day 11 – Paris - Monday, January 13th 2014

Another early start on a dark cold rainy Paris morning. We had to be on the curb waiting for the coach at 8am as the road was so narrow, as many of them are in Paris that he could not get into the street the hostel was on. It was a very new, clean place but probably went to far with its green credentials. When you had a shower you had to press the tap every 20 or so seconds, because it would turn off. This was designed to save water and raise frustration!

The first port of call was a clear but very cold Palace of Versailles. This was built by Louis XIV as a new home to get away from the Louvre which he hated. It is quite a “shack”

The entry to the Palace of Versailles

By the way the gold on the gates and roof are not paint. It’s real gold leaf! Inside the interiors left us gasping at the magnificence and opulence of the decorations. Louis did not “do it tough”.

We were given an audio tour to help us understand what we were looking at as we went from room to room. The result was an absorbing and interesting description of life at court, the development and history of the buildings and a better understanding of the things we were seeing

The Kings private Chapel

The Kings Bed (yes that is real gold in the fabric)

The famous hall of Mirrors

Julius, James and Reece (listening to his audio tour) sit in the ballroom.

Mr O’Brien “stunned” with the things he was seeing

Linda, David and Jack with a “little” Painting in the background

The palace is around 300 years old and something that old needs to be worked on and maintained. As we were going around we saw several instances of work being done.

A couple of workmen doing their maintenance.(“cop”the wallpaper! Reminds me of the 70’s)

The “normal” group in front of the Palace

The “not so normal” group in front of the Palace!

The grandeur of Versailles slowly retreated into the background as we motored Nort to the First World War battle fields. Our first stop was the Australian National Memorial at Villers Bretonneux. On April 25 1918 the men of the 13^th and 15^th Brigades crossed this place on their way into battle to relieve the town from the Germans. After a fierce battle in which 1 VC was won they succeeded. The people of the town were so grateful that they gave this piece of land to Australia in perpetuity.

The National Memorial at Villers Bretonneux.

The tower at the Memorial

The students at the top of the tower

The group with the flag at the memorial

David signs the memorial visitors book

After the memorial we went into the town of Villers Bretonneux to visit the Franco Australian Museum, located looking over the school yard. Australians gave money to the villagers to rebuild the school after the war. A number of streets are named after the cities in Australia. E.g. Rue Melbourne. The school has a sign over it telling the students not to forget Australia.

The group in the Franco Australian Museum

The School yard in Villers Bretonneux

After this we went to another important Australian site. The Australian Corps Memorial. This commemorates the major victory that Gen John Monash had over the Germans on June4 1918. His innovative and meticulous approach to the battle resulted in a crushing blow to the Germans and showed the Allies how to break the stalemate of the Western Front using surprise and combined units of Armour, Artillery and Infantry to effectively overcome the intense defences of an entrenched enemy. The trenches are still to be seen at the site to this day.

Jayden at the Corps Memorial

It was late in the day as we headed off. We did make one more brief stop to view, of all things, a field. This field however, was the place where the legendary fighter ace Baron Manfred Von Richthofen was shot down and died. Killed we believe by the Australian troops he was flying low over at the time.

Tonight we are in Amien and tomorrow we continue our WW1 trip.