Versailles and Louise Braille

Today was one big History lesson! We traveled to Versailles, which is just on the outskirts of Paris and enjoyed the Palace tremendously. The palace is incredible! It makes Buckingham Palace look like a Doll House. Everyone was given headphones for an Audio tour in your Language that you choose, which meant the place was pretty much silent, with the exception of us of course because we had a little Mia to add to the entertainment :-) - She did great though being that she was probably bored to death! Camden and Bailey really enjoyed the History and Camden particularly enjoyed the Art Work. They were both fascinated with the fact that people who once lived here were sent to the guillitine! This palace was the home of Louis XIV, Marie Antoinette ..... The treaty of Versailles (the treaty that ended World War I) was signed in the room called "The Hall of Mirrors" (It is the picture of the kids and me that looks like an extravagent Hall in the background). We couldn't believe we were standing in that same room! The grounds were incredible and I know it would be even more spectaular in the Spring and Summer. It was really neat and even though we got the abbreviated tour (you could literally spend HOURS listening to all of the history and my parents would have taken advantage of every minute :-) it was super cool! On the way home we decided to go to the childhood home of Louis Braille (yes, the man that created the raised bumps that allowed people that were blind to read). This was also truly amazing. It is in this tiny little French town on the outskirts of Paris and certainly nothing fancy at all. We were amazed to learn how Louis Braille actually became blind. He was born with perfect sight, but at the age of 3 he went inside his Dad's "workshop" by himself and tried to use a sharp tool like he had seen his Dad do, and poked himself badly in the eye. Later, an infection spread into his other eye which left him completely blind. (This was in 1812 so there was no medicine to prevent it) He ended up going to a school in PAris and then once he graduated at 18, he taught at the school until he died in his fourties. It was cool too because our tour guide asked where we were from and we said Bamberg and he typed it up and gave it to us in Braille for the kids to keep. It was so wild to be standing in the house that he actually lived in. A funny thing about it is that we call him Louis Braille, while the French pronounce it Looey Bry (I guess they are right because he was French).