Has anyone seen the equestrian exhibitions at Versailles? I believe the re-opening of the academy was fairly recent (this year?). I'm trying to find out if reservations are, in fact, necessary, and if so how far in advance they need to be made. I'm curious about what you saw and if you enjoyed it. Anyone?<BR><BR>thanks!

http://query.nytimes.com/search/article-page.html?res=9A00E5DE143CF931A35750C0A9659C8B63<B R><BR>I have not seen the show, but plan to do so next month (hopefully...). <BR>The NY Times had an article a few weeks back on it and I have attached the link above. If that link doesn't work, go to the Times site at http://www.nytimes.com/ and use the query function.

Thanks for the link, BeeGee. Did you make a reservation, or will you wait till you get there? I'm not going until May, so I'd love to hear how it was when you get back.

Assuming my family doesn't get cold feet ( I have to go regardless ) I was planning to secure reservations when I arrived. I all works out, I will let you know if it is worth the journey.

topping...in case any recent returnees from Paris might have something to add?

In case anyone else was actually curious about this, I've just returned from Paris. It was possible to see the dressage exhibition without an advance reservation, we just headed to the stables (near the carriage museum) in the morning and got tickets for the afternoon show. They do these shows on Saturday and Sunday, but I believe you can watch rehearsals any day. It was interesting, although I would have enjoyed it more if my French was better. they described the gaits and the routines in French during the exhibition. My favorite part was actually walking through the stables and seeing the horses afterwards.