Camino Day 23 - Versailles and Tour Saint-Jacques

The rain just doesn't stop here in Paris. Though as Karim, the crepe maker in Versailles says, you just got to keep smiling.

Versailles has some beautiful grounds for biking and walking.

The look of the sculptured gardens is starting to be fully repaired after the storm of December 25, 29 1999 when 210km winds blew down over 10,000 trees on the grounds.

The new gardener decided to plant a mix of trees, rather than the single original species, so that not all the trees could be destroyed by a future blight. This decision has not gone over well with the traditionalists.

Got to cruise through the Galerie des Glaces/Hall of Mirrors, where the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919. Nicest room in the building by far.

In the afternoon I walked over to Tour Saint-Jacques, all that remains of the former 16th century Church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie ("Saint James of the butchery") which was leveled shortly after the French Revolution. Here marks the starting point for pilgrims in France going on the Camino St. James to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Cheers!