The whole trip had been amazing, and for my "grand finale" I opted to stay in Versailles for a trip to the temple and the (of course) the palace. My Airbnb was a room in a charming historic home in a neighborhood close to both, which was fortunate. I was enjoying a leisurely breakfast of decadent hot chocolate and toast when my host explained that their house was too close to the temple for Ubers to bother coming into the neighborhood to transport me to the temple (which had been my plan). I had just enough time to jog/walk to the temple, and the workers were kind enough to stall long enough for me to get ready. This temple was only dedicated a few years ago and the architecture was simple, but the stained glass windows were gorgeous! Each room's windows depicted different flowers, and later I realized that the first floor windows were the same flowers but as buds. While this could simply be that the windows were a two story design, I like the imagery of us coming into full bloom as we draw closer to Christ.
In the courtyard of the temple's gardens.
The temple's gardens.
The front of the temple.
Afterward I walked back to my Airbnb to change, and got a recommendation from my host on a nearby pastry shop for both sweet and savory pastries for lunch. All were amazing!
My dessert pastry with its take-out box.
I arrived at the Palace before my timed ticket, which meant I had plenty of time to explore the gardens before going in. I'd heard the gardens were extensive, but the sheer scale of it didn't sink in until I heard it was several times the size of New York's Central Park. This was one of the first days of the season the fountains and music were turned on so it was fun hiking out to explore them and try to envision what court life was like here.
Side facing the gardens
Those canals in the distance are part of the gardens.
Latona Fountain (mother of Apollo and Diana), depicting the bad guys getting turned into (gilded) turtles and frogs.
strolling the grounds
the Mirror Fountain was my favorite
Topiary trees
Bronze statues flanking the reflecting pond.
More topiary trees and statues
Buying a timed ticket easily saved me an hour in line, but did not save me dealing with hoards of tourists in every room. The over-the-top gilding and ornamentation, combined with Louis' making himself into a godlike figure to be worshiped, and the jostling of the tourists, was such a stark contrast to the temple. Pretty in its own way and historic, but by the end a bit much for me.
Known for his dancing skills and sense of fashion.
The Hall of Mirrors—among other things, the treaty ending WW1 was signed here.
The king's bed where lucky people could watch him wake up (part of his branding to convey he's more powerful than the sun).
This room was decorated to show France defeating its neighboring kingdoms.
Another wing of the palace showed where the daughters of the king lived; this was one of their bedrooms.
The weather had started to turn by the time I left the "chateau", but there was one more area I was determined to see. Wrapping my scarf around my head and hiking out there in the rain, Marie Antoinette had commissioned a rustic-looking hamlet to escape palace life with the grounds around it in an "English style" to look more natural. It reminded me a little of Disneyland, especially since everything was on a diminutive scale.
A few of the buildings in Marie Antoinette's hamlet
The queen's small house
I was exhausted by the time I left the gardens, but still a little surprised to see this Fitbit notification:
My last night consisted of a stroll through the town where I saw this street art:
...and enjoying a good meal before packing. I was exhausted from the pace of travel and looking forward to just sitting on the long flights back, but overwhelmingly grateful for everything I'd experienced over the past week.
I chose an Airbnb on the outskirts of town because of its proximity to my Monday morning destination: the Royal FloraHolland flower auction. I've heard it's the largest building in Europe and to put its size in perspective, the warehouse has three local bus stops on the perimeter of the building! The public can tour a portion of it via an overhead walkway and see a glimpse of the action. Part of me loved seeing the variety of cut flowers and the whole place smelled like a florist shop, but I was equally enthralled by the logistics of what I was seeing as flowers came in from around the world (including the Netherlands), were bid on, and were sorted to the various buyers before being shipped across Europe. One of the things I learned was that in a Dutch auction, it starts at the highest potential price and the first one to bid wins. At any given moment there are two items up for bid simultaneously to keep things moving, and because the warehouse is so large there's an overhead tram system for the flowers faster in addition to all the carts driven on the warehouse floor. It was mesmerizing to see them in action.
In this part of the warehouse, the carts moved along automated tracks to the bidding area; note the bicycle parking for getting around inside the warehouse.
Once the flowers on a cart is bid on, it's divided up based on the buyers and workers drive all or parts of it to the winners.
Delivering buckets of flowers after the bidding to the "neighborhoods" of buyers. Once a mixed cart is full it's moved to another area of the warehouse for transport.
Before leaving, they had a green screen where you could insert yourself into the action, and I couldn't resist.
Fun with the green screen.
It's like I'm in the auction room.
How flower distribution would've looked decades ago.
The auction happens so early that I still got to the city center just as things were opening up. I rented a bike for the day and headed to the nearby town of Haarlem. It was about 11 miles, almost entirely flat, and other than my phone's navigation occasionally disagreeing with the signs, was a mostly straight shot along bike paths and bike lanes.
waterfront in Haarlem
As I arrived at the city center, I was greeted with a performance on their church's bell tower.
De Adriaan windmill
I biked around a little, enjoying the charming architecture before taking a train back to Amsterdam for my last stop: the Rijksmuseum. It's the national art and history museum, and had a Rembrandt exhibit that was fantastic in honor of the 350th anniversary of his death. His etchings were incredible, and I appreciated the thought he put into his biblical subjects.
The Rijksmuseum was designed by the same architect as the central train station.
The art history library
Rembrandt used himself as a model to hone his skills at capturing facial expressions; this was one of my favorites.
Christ in Gethsemane; note the disciples sleeping in the lower left corner as the mob in the background comes to take him.
Standing trial
The Good Samaritan
Woman at the well
"The Hundred Guilder" etching of Matthew 19 (nicknamed because it was so commercially successful)
Sketch of Christ washing the disciples' feet
Peter betraying Christ (who is in the background, looking back at him)
Not sure why this wealthy couple decided their wedding portrait required two canvases instead of one, but it means the paintings today belong to separate collections. It was a big deal to see them displayed together.
...such a big deal that the museum had these large playmobil versions of them on display.
I tried to soak in as much of the museum as possible before it closed, and afterward biked along the canals before returning to the airport for my flight back to Paris.
Canal in the Jordaan neighborhood
It wasn't too late when I landed at Orly in Paris, but by the time I reunited with my big backpack in central Paris and travelled to Versailles, it was another late night and sleep came easily.
