Palace of Versailles

Versailles: How to Not Hate Your Day Trip

Three million people visit the Palace of Versailles every year. On a summer Tuesday, around 20,000 of them are doing it at the same time as you. The palace itself is extraordinary and worth the effort, but arriving unprepared means you will spend your afternoon in a queue and leave with sore feet and a poor opinion of Louis XIV.

Here is how to do it properly.

Getting There

Take the RER C train from Paris. From Gare d’Austerlitz, Saint-Michel, or Champ de Mars stations, the journey to Versailles Chateau-Rive Gauche takes about 35 minutes and costs 4.60 euros each way. The station is a 10-minute walk from the main entrance. Ignore the private shuttles and tour buses that collect at Paris airports: they are slower and far more expensive.

Tickets

Book online through the official chateauversailles.fr site, not through third-party aggregators. The standard palace ticket is 21 euros. The Passport ticket at 32 euros adds the Trianon estates and the Grand Parc (including the Musical Fountains shows on weekends). The Passport is worth it on a Saturday or Sunday when the fountains are running; on a weekday it is less necessary.

The palace is closed Monday. The Musical Fountains, one of the genuine highlights of the estate, run Saturday and Sunday afternoons from April through October, to a programme of baroque music. These are included in the Passport but cost extra if you buy the standard ticket.

The Hall of Mirrors

Yes, it is spectacular. Seventy-three metres long, 357 mirrors, 20,000 candles’ worth of gold chandeliers. It was designed to project an image of French power at a time when France was genuinely the dominant force in European politics. The Treaty of Versailles ending the First World War was signed here in 1919, which adds a layer of history that the original Louis XIV would have found baffling.

Go early. The Hall fills by 10:30 on busy days. If you arrive at the 09:00 opening, you will have around 30 minutes of manageable crowds before it becomes uncomfortable.

Beyond the Main Palace

The Petit Trianon is where Marie Antoinette actually spent most of her time, and it is far more interesting than the formal palace rooms. She had it redecorated in a neoclassical style that was radical for its era, and behind it she built the Hameau de la Reine, a fake peasant hamlet with a working farm where she and her friends played at rural simplicity. The irony, given what happened in 1789, is considerable.

The Hameau is around a 25-minute walk from the main palace through the gardens. Most tourists do not make it this far, which means you often have it nearly to yourself.

The Grand Canal is 1.6 km long and cuts through the formal gardens axis to the south. In summer, rowboats hire for 16 euros per hour from the Grand Canal boathouse. In winter, the gardens are often empty and blanketed in mist.

The Gardens: What Most People Miss

The formal gardens directly behind the palace are meticulously maintained and filled with statues and fountains. Beyond them, the Bosquets, a series of small enclosed garden rooms within the forest, are worth exploring. The Bosquet des Colonnes, the Bosquet du Marais, and the Bosquet de l’Encelade (with its half-submerged giant) each have their own character and are rarely crowded even on peak days.

Food

Eat before you come or bring food. The restaurants inside the estate are mediocre and expensive (15 euros for a basic croque-monsieur at Angelina). The market in the town of Versailles, a 15-minute walk from the main gate in the opposite direction to the train station, has good produce and some decent food stalls. Alternatively, pack a picnic: eating on the Grand Canal lawn is one of the better things about a Versailles day.

When to Come

Avoid July and August on weekends. A midweek visit in May, September, or October gives you a substantially more peaceful experience. The late-October and November visits are underrated: crowds disappear, the trees are golden, and the fountain shows have ended (which removes some visitors but not others).

A day in Versailles requires proper planning but repays it. The sheer ambition of the place, that a single monarch built what is essentially a small city to project his own magnificence, still registers when you stand at the far end of the Grand Canal and look back at the palace 1.6 km away.