London Day 2 - Goldhawk Road, Shepherd's Bush Market, Primark, Evita the Musical

10/31/2014

King's Cross station

Baby wanted to go fabric shopping today, and boy, did she do her research. We walked to St. Pancras/King's Cross station to tube it. Recognize the beautiful station? Harry Potter, Angel!!! I wanted to go take pictures between Platforms 9 and 10, but baby wouldn't let me. She said we had much more pressing things to do today (like fabric shopping?) than Harry Potter.

Angel: Firstly, I didn't say you couldn't do it; just not today as we were in a rush. And secondly, you have a Harry Potter land in Universal Studios to go to; I don't think anybody opened an attraction/theme park for fabric.

Jen: "Firstly, I didn't say you couldn't do it; just not today"...or ever :T

We hopped on the Hammersmith line to get to Goldhawd Road station. Once you get out, the whole street is full of fabric shops. I asked Angel, what if it's a big conspiracy and they're all owned by the same person? hehe

Baby was so excited, kept oohing and aahing over the fabrics. She loaded up BIG TIME. The first store we saw, Angel saw a beautiful blue chiffon with white swallows print. She asked the clerk (she actually asked someone!!! *gasp* I guess if you give her an incentive...) how much that chiffon was, but the clerk said they no longer carried it anymore. Angel asked if she could get the piece in the window display and the clerk said he couldn't take it out of there. So baby went into every store, looking for that fabric.

We didn't find that chiffon, but we found many other things. After walking around the block, going into every store (some stores have 2-3 different levels!), we went to Shepherd's Bush Market, which is right off Goldhawk Road. They're like a tiny Portobello Road, with different stalls selling eclectic things, like kitchenware, sewing notions, clothing, CDs, seafood, meat and fruit. There was one store (not stall) that we noticed because Angel liked a mint polka dot chiffon. And then we saw all their beautiful upholstery fabrics--I think we were in that store for a good hour or so. The upholstery was only 3.95 pounds/meter, which is hella cheap compared to the US. I'd spent many an hour online, looking for my dream upholstery material (silvery damask, if anyone's asking), but it's like $75-100/yard. And not even the design I want.

So I was super happy to see upholstery that I liked--and Angel liked!--and it's cheap. A lot of women came by, touching the fabrics we pulled out and exclaiming how pretty they were. We bought out their supply of the green and pink fabric (I'll show you down below), just when a lady came by and asked how much that one was. The clerk told her there was no more--as it turns out, this was an overstock, so they got it for cheap. Cuz usually this stuff is really expensive, especially given the close weave.

Angel: Overall clothing fabrics were pretty cheap on Goldhawk Road - most of the cottons/chiffons I bought were 4 pounds or less (the most expensive was 4.95 pounds/meter). Inside Shepherd's Bush Market there were a few stalls off of the main market path and there I got the cheapest (and my favorite find of the day) piece of fabric for 1.5 pounds/meter; it was a mint green chiffon with roses and polka dots.

Around Goldhawk and Shepherd's Bush, there's a lot of yummy looking Middle Eastern food places. We walked by this one doner durum place and my mouth was drooling, the chicken schwarma looked so tasty, all dripping in oil. But we had a gigantic breakfast and I knew I couldn't stuff anymore into my stomach :T Ah well, next time!

Shepherd's Bush Market

There were a lot of women our age on Goldhawk and Shepherd's Bush buying fabrics to sew with, which I thought was remarkable, given that this doesn't happen very often in the US. All girls I know go shopping for ready-made, not fabrics. Thusly, I was very pleased that the clerks here asked me if I needed help. I've been told in the US by someone that she didn't think I was the type to sew. :T

Why do I look like I can't sew???

Our haul was very heavy! And we had to lug it all back to the hotel. By the end of the fabric shopping excursion, I was left with 20 pence...and this was going there with a wallet stuffed full of coins and bills. Most places only take cash, unless you buy more than 10-20 pounds, then you can pay with credit card.

Angel: In total we bought over 22 meters of fabric! We even picked up a tablecloth for the new sewing room.

Since we had to carry all that heavy stuff back to the hotel, we had ourselves a rather big snack of chocolate-covered flapjacks:

And caramel shortbread:

We ate off almost 3 boxes within 24 hours! Yeah, we were feeling sorry for ourselves, for toting the heavy stuff around. Here's our haul:

And the expensive upholstery that we got for cheap (plus, the right one is 8.5 meters, but the clerk counted it as 7.5 meters because all she had was 3 separate pieces when we originally wanted it all in one big piece):

Unfortunately, they're dry clean only. Though what else is new with upholstery?

After our snack, we went to the Marble Arch Primark store (different store from yesterday's Oxford Circle locale). As the masters of dawdling, we ended up spending close to 3 hours in there--when at first, we were like, yeah, Primark won't take that long today. NOT.

We found 100% down jackets for 15 pounds (well, the blue color was cheaper than the black for some reason). I bought boots--yeah, yeah, another pair. But hey, I'll need it for Edinburgh, right?

Angel bought a bunch of flats. Dude, there was one for 2 pounds! She bought another cardigan and we went a bit overboard with their jackets. They're just so pretty and cheap! But because these jackets are all meant for UK winter wear (soooo different from CA winter wear as they're much heavier and substantial), we're now worried about our luggage limit.

After checking out, we went to the VAT tax refund counter on the top floor of Primark. The guy was very helpful and told us that we should wait til the end of our trip to claim the VAT, as there are certain tiers of spending that will get you more of a refund. Oops. This means that in the future, and going forward on this trip, we'll consolidate all the VAT into one, and claim it all at once. Most likely in Edinburgh, as we won't have finished all our shopping til then.

We walked from Marble Arch to Tottenham Court Road for Evita the Musical. Bad idea. Bad idea, especially if you're running low on time, which we were. We've done this walk before, and it felt like it was only 10 minutes back then. Not. It's actually a 40 minute walk, more cuz we were weighed down with all the bags of goodies we purchased from Primark. Should've tubed it. Was kicking myself as I rushed down Oxford street. >.<

I'd purchased these seats months ago. All the good (but reasonably cheap) seats were taken as this is a limited time engagement. Tomorrow's actually the last night Evita will be performed here. Our seats were in aisle ZZ, which is the last row of the ground floor. As it turns out, it was double the leg room of the other rows (excellent, cuz we had all those Primark bags to stow) and it has a curtain-covered railing right in back of it. As it's the last row, we were able to sit on the top of the seats without folding them down and not have to worry about blocking somebody's view. The Dominion Theatre's rows aren't very steep (almost nonexistent actually) and British people are very tall, so if we had sat down in our seats properly, we'd basically be watching the back of the head of the person in front of us.

Brits are very nice. There were at least 4 parties that saw our bags and decided to walk the other way 'round so that we didn't have to get up and move the bags. In the seat ahead of us, a gentleman had sat down there. A couple came up and it turns out he's actually sitting in their seat. The gentleman's confused, so the wife takes the gentleman by hand and leads him to his proper seat. I'd noticed in Primark that when someone wants to get by you, they say "Sorry," not "Excuse me."

I pointed this out to Angel in awe. I feel like in the US, almost no one says "sorry." I do, for some weird reason, so it annoys me that other people don't. I wondered aloud if in the US, it's somehow a sign of weakness to say "sorry."

Angel replied, "Cuz it is."

Angel really loved Evita. Baby kept raving about it after the show finished and as we were walking home. I do agree that the lady playing Evita had a beautiful voice. But I couldn't understand half the time what the chorus was singing, and I couldn't understand Che for a better part of it.

I really should've done some homework on Evita before I came, I guess. I'm still confused--I thought Evita was supposed to be a love story? Between Evita and Che? The movie photo--and the musical photo--both show Evita and Che together. Dude, Evita's holding Che in her embrace! Then where's the love story??? It didn't show up at any time during the musical. I kept waiting for them to get together, but they never did. Che just turned out to be a glorified narrator. wtf.

Baby is a huge Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice fan, so Evita was right up her alley. I really like both ALW and TR, but I just couldn't get into the groove of the Evita songs. Maybe cuz I couldn't understand what they were singing?

The musical showed both sides of Eva Peron; that is, both from her detractors as well as her supporters. Which I guess makes you feel ambiguous about the heroine of the story, as her detractors were really quite harsh in their criticisms--"bitch," "slut," "whore" were words used in the songs. Yeah, it's not PG. They painted her to be an attention-grasping woman who slept around, choosing her partners based on who had the most power. Coco Chanel, anyone?

Her supporters made her seem like a much-revered goddess who gave a voice to the poor of Argentina...though her asides made it seem like she was deliberately courting them in this way, and not really doing it out of the goodness of her heart.

One of Angel's favorite song is "You Must Love Me." I never knew she liked this song, as it's not one of my favorites. I was amazed when she said it's one of her favorites of all time.

The title speaks much of her character, no?

London Day 1 - Eurostar Gare du Nord to St. Pancras, Sainsbury's, Marks and Spencers, Primark

10/30/2014

Our last morning in Paris. Angel made croissant jambon as we packed to leave the apartment. I lugged the luggage down two flights of stairs into our little courtyard:

Angel: I lugged the backpacks. Which had a lot of water bottles. Yeah.

The metro stop of Les Halles has progressed more in its construction since the last time we came, there's escalators now that helped a lot, as our luggage was very heavy. Although... there is an elevator, somewhere. We've seen it in the underground, but haven't connected it to where it is on the ground level. It's supposedly near St. Eustache. I told Angel to go look around, as those stairs seemed a bitch to go down. Baby was tired from pushing her luggage from the apartment to the metro stop, so she said it'd be more direct to just go down the stairs, as opposed to someone watching the luggage and the other going to find the elevator.

Well, it is more direct. It's also more of a bitch, as I lugged both our luggage down the stairs amidst the lovely stench of urine.

We took the metro from Les Halles to Gare du Nord to catch the Eurostar into London. I don't remember quite so many people taking Eurostar the last time we came, but damn, it was packed today. I thought we got there early--a whole hour early. But there were so many people already waiting in the waiting lounges. I also don't remember going through customs, though we did go from Paris to London last time. Damn, UK's customs is a whole lot more strict than the US--and I thought the US was bad! They seriously grill you about why you're going to the UK, if you have family/friends there, how many days you're there. The customs agent even asked to see proof of us leaving the UK--do they think a lot of people are going to squat in the UK? I didn't think UK had an illegal immigrants problem :T

I love Paris, but I'm glad we're leaving. There's waaaay too many smokers and I felt, toward the end, that my lungs were gonna go on strike, like the French railway workers.

Angel: Jen was so bothered that last night instead of writing the blog on time she spent time researching the cancer death rates for both men and women in France.

Jen: Well, Angel, now that you mentioned it...
French men have a higher mortality rate due to smoking than any other EU country. New figures show that men are quitting more, due to concerns of cancer. We've seen men on the streets smoking fake cigarettes.

But French women's mortality due to smoking is rising rapidly, though the French women have a saying: “plutôt mourir qu'être grosse.” In other words, "Better dead than fat."

Angel: OK moving on....

Our hotel is relatively close to King's Cross/St Pancras in London, so we rolled our luggage there. We booked a studio, so it has a suite of refrigerator, separate freezer, oven, microwave, and heck, even a free laundry facility downstairs (I just learned this today, when I was looking at our booking confirmation). Though Angel used the laundry room tonight, only to have them turn it off halfway through the drying cycle. Apparently it's only open 8am-8pm >.< Who would wanna do laundry in the middle of the day???

Our hotel, exterior shot:

After we got settled in, we decided to take a stroll down Oxford St to visit our favorite shops/supermarkets - Primark, Marks and Spencer, and Sainbury's. We took Tottenham Court road down to Oxford and really never made it past the first Primark - there was just that much to see and do.
At Sainsbury's we immediately bought ourselves some caramel shortbread squares and some milk chocolate flapjacks. Yum!
Angel: At Marks and Spencer I was pleased to find that the Viennese sandwich cookie we liked so much last time was still sold in the raspberry flavor (in the Prague M&S it was only available in hazelnut). I plan to stock up. =)
We reached Primark around 5 or 6pm, but wth...it's a Thursday night and it was so so crowded. It was like fighting a war...literally! We witnessed a real catfight in the middle of the store, where 2 girls were hitting each other with the merchandise, and store security had to come and break it up. I wanted to see what was going on (as did everyone else who was crowding around to catch a glimpse) but Jen wanted to run away like a squealing slug. Even after we walked halfway around the store, away from the fight, they were still going at it. Sheesh.

Jen: Squealing slug? I didn't know slugs could squeal :P I never really understood it with these things--if there's shit going down, why would you want to be there? Personally, I'd like to be far away. But after I dragged Angel away, she kept saying, "Ooohh, let's go see" with a rather gleeful glint in her eyes. Do you really want to see girls hitting each other?!

Angel: Jen's lying. She does like to see girls going at it; note: I'm not the one who likes to watch Real Housewives.

We bought quite a few things at Primark, enough to warrant us checking out how to get a VAT tax refund. It was rather frustrating, as one employee told us to go to ground level to do it, another told us to go to the 2nd floor, and yet another one tells us to go to the Men's department at -1. Turns out, the last employee was right. It's in the Men's department. The company that processes these tax refunds gets almost 50% commission, so of the entitled 13 pounds I should get refunded, I'll only get 6 pounds back after commission. Damn they know how to make money. They have an option now of mailing back the receipts to get a VAT refund on your credit card, so I'm going to check out how we can do that.

For dinner, we bought Sainsbury's ready-to-go chicken tikka masala. We had this last time with Mom, standing and shivering outside Marble Arch, but having a great time nonetheless, eating the steaming hot curry cuz it was so damn good.

This time, it was so freakin' hot in London, we decided to go back to the hotel, shower and get comfy, before eating. Angel noticed the microwave even has a setting for reheating curry (UK's national food?):

Chicken tikka masala--so yummy! I don't know what kind of spices they put in or how they cook it, but they do it so well! I'd say out of 10 Indian restaurants I visit in the Bay Area, probably only 1 can make it this good.

Paris Day 4 - Chateau de Chantilly, Musee Conde, Pierre Herme...again

10/29/2014

Chateau de Chantilly

I knew I wanted to go to Chateau de Chantilly...I just didn't want to figure out how to get there, as it seemed really complicated, based on what other ppl were saying online. We put it off on Monday, then found out that it was closed on Tuesdays...so today was basically do or die.

So, we did.

Both the RER (D line) and the TER Picardie train goes to Chantilly. The RER sounded simpler, as we could just hop on from our vacation rental stop of Chatelet Les Halles and get off at Chantilly Grouvieux. However, after Aeroport Charles de Gaulle, the RER zones tap out. Anything after the CDG stop is out of the tariff zone, so we had no idea how to pay for the damn ticket.

The TER Picardie (France's regional train) starts at Gare du Nord, which meant we had to pay for the metro ticket to Gare du Nord, then purchase the regional train tickets. It's 8.40 euro/person/one-way, and it's only 2 stops away from Paris...though it's a loooong two stops. The journey takes 25 minutes and the train seats were pretty nice. I thought we were in first class, until Angel saw a sign that said it was 2nd class:

We drew out a map of how to walk to the chateau from the train station. People online said there's a bus, but it's unmarked so you'll have to figure out how to get on the bus. Some people shared taxis over to the chateau, but we decided to make the 30 minute trek through the countryside. The weather report said highs were going to be 60 degrees, with showers.

Of course, that didn't happen.

We dressed according to the weather report, in peacoats, scarves and mittens, and had our umbrellas with us. LOL the weather forecast was so wrong. As we were walking, Angel kept complaining how hot it was. She had to take off her overcoat, then her regular coat, then the hat came off. She was not a happy camper.

The scenery was very pretty though:

The walk takes you through the Chantilly Hippodrome (horse racetracks):

Where's the rain???

After clearing the forest and trees, you can see the Musee du Cheval (Chantilly's Horse Museum):

Musee du Cheval

The Horse Museum, of course, was in the back of the Chantilly estate. Go figure. Every time we're in Europe, we somehow always manage to take the back way into the attractions. :T

The back of Chateau de Chantilly

We had to buy the tickets in order to get into the Chantilly park. It's a vast estate, much like Versailles. It does have a hamlet, though it's converted to a restaurant now, not preserved like Marie Antoinette's.

Chateau de Chantilly served as a hunting lodge for royalty, so you can see a lot of hunting gear, artwork and statues in the castle. The entryway, for example, is guarded by dogs:

Angel: If you look closely you can see 3! =)

We were surprised on our walk over that we didn't encounter too many tourists. Off-tourist season? we guessed. But upon turning to the main entrance, you can see the big tour buses and lots of people walking in the distance. Haha we were just on the wrong side of the castle, I guess.

As we were admiring the castle's moat, a French guy passed us and asked if we wanted a picture together. So nice! It's a rarity that we have pictures together, as we haven't figured out the selfies system with our arms, and don't have that nifty rod all the Asian tourists are carrying around that extends the camera away from you, allowing you to take selfies effortlessly.

When we entered the castle (14 euros/person for entrance to the castle and parks, more if you want to see the special exhibits or Horse Museum), we found out that the audioguide was free. Seriously, peepz, take advantage. There were people walking around the castle without the audioguide--why wouldn't you take advantage of this free resource? The audioguide was entertaining and chock full of history--we learned so much in the 3.5 hours we were in the castle. The audioguide has a fast version and a more in-depth version, depending on what you want.

After you enter through the foyer (and what a lovely foyer it is, too--full of carved columns, capitals and gilded fleur de lys), you go into a small reception room where there's a lot of cabinets holding precious objects. Angel liked this jade column, an Oriental piece:

Off to one side of the reception room is the library. The castle has the largest private collection of books and artworks in France, aside from the Louvre. The last owner of the castle, the Duc d'Aumale, was a huge bibliophile. He loved books. He went all over Europe, going to auctions to obtain rare books of historical value. There were books from the 15th, 16th centuries in here, and one of the books here is considered to be the most beautiful manuscript of illuminations, the Tres Riches Heures.

The Library

The duc d'Aumale had a very large collection of Illuminations (remember what the monks did at Mont St. Michel?):

Look how tiny this book is! It's smaller than Angel's pinkie!

One of the first rooms on the tour is completely gilded. My kind of room!

The duc d'Aumale loved to receive visitors here so that he could show off his vast collection of artwork. The way the audioguide tour is designed, it takes you through the rooms much as the Duc would have a hundred years ago. You start in the gilded room above, pass some other rooms of similar varieties, to enter the Battle Room, one of his favorite rooms. Upon his death, he bequeathed Chantilly to the government with the request that none of the artwork could be lended out and none of the artwork could be rearranged. So, the way the paintings are hung up now are exactly how they would have been displayed in the Duc's time.

The Battle Room:

Large portraits adorn the Battle Room, depicting victorious battle scenes, mostly of the House of Conde. The last prince of Conde was the duc d'Aumale's godfather, and when Conde died, he bequeathed Chateau de Chantilly and a large fortune to the young Duc. In today's money, the duc inherited over 200 million dollars!

So, the duc wanted to honor his godfather's family. One of his godfather's ancestors was the Great Conde, a prince of Conde (who owned Chantilly during his lifetime) who was renowned for his military prowess on the battlefield. He won victories for King Louis XIV, though later he sided against France in a war with Spain. When Spain was defeated, Louis XIV originally marked the Great Conde for death. However, he was later pardoned, and as a conciliatory gesture, the Great Conde commissioned this painting:

In the blue coat is the Great Conde himself, and the one wearing the white feather hat is King Louis XIV. The Great Conde faces away from us, to show his humbleness in the face of the king. Smart man. Suck up and get your life back.

In later life, he was plagued with gout. Sounds familiar? ^.^

I noticed one chair in particular:

I loved the damask fabric:

Turns out, this set of chairs was commissioned by Marie Antoinette, originally to be placed in Versailles. Who knows how it ended up here, but a lot of royal furniture has found its way to Chantilly.

Here's Angel, so enthralled with the audioguide that she put it on repeat:

Why, you may ask? Because she's a petty little child.

The story that had her so enthralled involved the majordomo to the Great Conde, Francois Vatel. The Great Conde had just regained favor with King Louis XIV, so he wanted to throw a huge party in honor of the king. Vatel was in charge of preparations. However, a string of mishaps occurred during the party:

On the first day, too many people came (unexpected guests, aka party crashers), so there wasn't enough roast to go around.

On the second day, a cloud covered the fireworks--and remember, fireworks were a big deal during this time, a recent transport from Italy that had the nobility enthralled.

On the third day, Vatel went to the kitchen to inventory the fish. But there was no fish in the kitchens. A storm on the coast had delayed shipments, though Vatel did not know this. Humiliated, Vatel went up to his room, wedged his sword through the door...and ran himself through the sword. His body was discovered when someone came upstairs to inform him that the fish had arrived. He became France's patron saint of cooks.

Angel: What honor. What pride in one's work. I don't see Jen making a move for the swords when her pastries go wrong. If she were in Vatel's place, she probably would've served the royal guests some pigeons she found outside. Dead, alive, half-eaten by scavengers...whatever.

Jen: Hey, pigeons were a status symbol cuz meat was rare...different decade, but still...

The room above is the dining hall where the Duc would eat and entertain his guests. Empress Sisi dined here when she was a guest. They used to do service a la Francais, which was a bitch, cuz you needed 3 servants/guest. The food would be on chafers at the center of the table, already ready for you once you enter the dining hall. Glasses, pitchers, mugs weren't allowed on the table, so whenever you wanted to drink something, you wave your hand and a servant would bring you a glass. You drink it, they take the cup away to be washed. The next time you want to drink something, a new glass would be brought.

Toward the end of the Duc's life, the fashionable service became a la Russe (Russian), where everyone is served at the same time, which is how restaurants serve you today.

Then we entered the gallery, where the Duc proudly displayed his art collection:

Here's one by Nicolas Proussin, the Massacre of Innocents:

Poussin painted this early in his career, as a way to gain attention. He went against popular methods of the time, and chose to use only 3 primary colors to paint this. The mother, with her mouth open in horror as her baby is being slaughtered, is in the center of the painting. Geometrically, her opened mouth is at the very center of the painting, and this technique is something Picasso would use some 300 years later.

One side of the gallery is covered in Italian Renaissance artwork. This is to honor the Duc's mother, who was a princess of Sicily. The other side is French artwork, to honor the Duc's father, King Louis-Philippe I.

There's Raphaels on display, like this one:

They didn't actually know this was a real Raphael, until restoration work uncovered this:

The small rectangle and the "133" actually belongs in Raphael's catalogue of works.

There was a bronze Japanese statue the duc acquired, which may have been used to heat the room or burn incense:

There are signs everywhere asking you to please not touch anything. Of course, the tour group from China ignores this, and an obasan poses beside it, kinda leaning against it with her hand, while her friend snaps away. Geesh, people. Have some respect!

The portrait room is where the Duc collected artwork of royalty, past and present (his present, not ours). There's portraits of his ancestors here, as well as Cardinal Richelieu, King Francis I, Henry III, Marie Stuart, Catherine de Medici.

...and Anne Boleyn:

Chantilly is known for its lace and whipped cream. Francois Vatel, the patron saint of cooks, is--incorrectly--credited with inventing the Creme Chantilly (French for whipped cream). Whipped cream was known at least a century before Vatel's time, just not known as Creme Chantilly. One speculation is that a baron enjoyed the whipped cream he ate at Hameau de Chantilly and he began to praise it/recommend it to people as the whipped cream of Chantilly. 

They had Chantilly lace on display:

They're so fine! So intricate!

The Duc really liked Ingres works, so there's more than several dotting the castle walls. One depicts the story of a young woman who is betrothed to an old man. She falls in love with his younger brother. When her husband finds out, he runs them both through with his sword--you can see the old man pulling the curtain aside to spy on them on the right-hand side:

One of the main reasons I wanted to come here was that they were having a Botticelli exhibit. I didn't know until later that the exhibit costs extra. Turns out, a lot of the paintings in Chantilly were taken down...to be displayed in the Botticelli exhibit. Angel got a kick out of this:

All those little post-its notate that the corresponding painting was removed for the Botticelli exhibit.

Angel: As the Botticelli exhibit costs extra to enter, I am highly suspicious of the number of pieces of art missing from the regular exhibits for this "special exihbit." One would have thought they should've been included in the regular ticket, if they'd been hanging on the wall as they originally were...

When the duc d'Aumale was young, he traveled to Italy to meet his fiancee, a princess of Sicily. While there, the Italian dignitaries arranged an excavation for the young duc. You can see the picture of their excavation here:

What really happened is that some months before the duc was scheduled to arrive, they had the area dug up for artifacts. Then, when the duc came to visit, they placed the artifacts back in a way that the duc could easily find them...kinda like an Easter egg hunt for the nobility. So the artifacts lying around the picture are the artifacts the duc "dug up."

Angel: I feel like this painting (above) is the Waldo of "Where's Waldo in the French museum?" We saw it in another chateau on this trip, and Dad felt like he saw it in another museum on the previous trip.

Jen: The painting depicts King Louis-Philippe and his 5 sons riding horseback, after opening Versailles as a museum for all to enjoy. The young man on the furthest right is the young duc d'Aumale:

His father made such an impression on him with giving Versailles to the people, that he was inspired to do the same with Chantilly upon his death. Exactly one year after he died, Chantilly was opened to the public, according to his wishes, so that all may enjoy the artwork he so lovingly collected.

His father, Louis-Philippe, was forced to abdicate and go into exile in England during the Revolution of 1848. The duc d'Aumale went into exile in England as well, and stayed there for over 2 decades. His generosity to the French government finally made them concede the exile orders, and he was able to return to France for a time, though he died in Sicily. He had 7 children, 3 of which were stillborns. But all four children preceded him to death. When his first son died while abroad in Australia (the first in a royal family to ever visit Australia), his wife went into shocked depression and died shortly thereafter. The duc loved his wife and chose to remain a widower for the rest of his days. With his son's death, and him not marrying again, the title of the Prince of Conde died out too.

Miniature guns--Angel thought Dad would get a kick out of this

Here's a Raphael of the Three Graces:

Angel: Jen's ogling after a (copy of the original) 9+ carat pink Duke diamond. The diamond was stolen in the 1920s by thieves, and oddly hid the diamond in an apple because they had trouble selling it off (it was too big and recognizable).

And there's even a portrait here of the assassination of the Duc of Guise:

Angel saw this painting and thought the man looked like a serial killer:

Turns out, it's a portrait of Bonaparte!

A lion hanging on the wall of the dining room

The final stop of the tour is the chapel, where the hearts of duc d'Aumales' family are entombed (this is a practice dating from the Middle Ages, where they separate the heart from the body after death):

Lovely foyer

There's a guided tour of the Duc's private residences (there's only one English-speaking tour every day at 3pm) that costs 3 euros/person. It was 2:55pm and I very excitedly went back to Angel to tell her this (I asked for the info from the ticket-checker lady). Angel replied: "I'd rather use the money to buy macarons." So we didn't go in.

As we exited, we saw the outside of the apartments, so I guess I saw a portion of the tour? :P

Exterior of the duc d'Aumale's private residence

Baby was hungry by now (it was past 3pm), so she ate the McCafe's pistachio macaron she brought along:

Evidently, this is more important than a tour of the private residence:

The gardens and canals at Chantilly were designed by the famous Le Notre:

The Temple of Venus, in the gardens:

The English garden:

Leaving Chantilly :(

This was a very good tour and I wouldn't mind coming back one day. The train home was delayed by about 25 minutes, God knows why. Strike?

We were going to go home, but Angel wanted to go to the Bonaparte Pierre Herme to stock up for tomorrow's train ride to London. I told her I'd get off at Les Halles and go back to shower first, and she could go on to Pierre Herme, but she grabbed my arm and wouldn't let go. I told her the money we save on my metro ticket could go toward her macaron. Baby pouted and said that she'd tell Mom that I sacrificed her safety all to save 1.37 euros (the price of a carnet metro ticket). It was dark by now, but really? You little brat!