August 2014
Today I found out that the police will make me a biometric card on January 23. Well then, for 6 months of use I'll pay 2500 crowns. So, turned the wrong way somewhere. But in the times when everything was bad-terrible, and I had a card, I went abroad once a year, and here are photos from one of those trips - to Versailles. Of course, from distant 2014.
I didn't really know anything about France, and I had little travel experience, since I'm a village person and until age 23 I didn't travel anywhere at all, only visited 2 cities - Moscow and Kaluga.
And so, in those days I visited Paris and little Rambouillet, and even decided on an independent trip to famous Versailles.
The city itself is rich, cool. Lots of tourists. We came by train, and apparently few did that. Trains in France are hard to understand at first. Buying tickets etc. is also a bit of an adventure, despite the fact that I more or less understand French. But we arrived fine.
From the station to the palace itself it's not far to walk, about 15 minutes. For some reason I didn't take photos of the city itself, was young and inexperienced, but I really liked it. The only thing I didn't like was food prices (had to buy a baguette in a store).
Navigating is really simple. Don't like such parking lots, but in that case everything wasn't so terrible.
Overall - a solid European city.
Green man. Different from Czech ones, don't know why exactly.
Versailles itself can be described in exactly two words: golden and wide.
This is really all you need to know about it.
There's a place to walk and breathe, entry to the gardens is free, I gave up on the palace, they're not interesting anywhere in the world.
It's fine around. You feel small, need to walk a lot.
Lots of gardens, greenery. Take your girlfriend on a date there basically.
Arches, this and that, you can feel that people deal with all this and aren't sitting without money.
Proof that this is 2014 (though I wore this shirt the day before yesterday)
Lots of walking, you'll definitely get tired.
But it's beautiful.
How to become French? Need to take a blanket, lie on the grass and chat.
Locals take a bottle of wine and a baguette with them, verified - it's a solid idea, both fun and tasty. Can't buy a baguette of decent quality for reasonable money in Czechia, same with wine.
And we slowly walked home. Walking back was quite a lot, by that point I was really tired.
And we went home on the train again, took a photo.
Unfortunately you can't see it in the photo, but the car was quite trashed, Czech ones are all much cleaner. In France there's one problem with public transport - poor people don't pay for travel, ignore turnstiles (everywhere).
Because of this:
a) tickets get more expensive for those who pay
b) everything's covered in shit, because those who don't pay don't care
In Czechia everything's in perfect condition, practically any public transport works as it should. And the fact that money goes to good use is very visible. Now freeloaders in Russia piss me off. If you see such assholes -
And another funny feature of French trains - incredibly incomprehensible pronunciation over the loudspeaker.
Conclusions from the note - Versailles is mandatory for visiting and understanding France. You have to pay for tickets, and freeloaders are assholes.