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The Palace of Versailles

By Rick Steves and Steve Smith

Every king's dream, Versailles was the residence of the French king and the cultural heartbeat of Europe for about 100 years — until the Revolution of 1789 ended the notion that God deputized some people to rule for him on Earth. Louis XIV spent half a year's income of Europe's richest country turning his dad's hunting lodge into a palace fit for a divine monarch. Louis XV and Louis XVI spent much of the 18th century gilding Louis XIV's lily. In 1837, about 50 years after the royal family was evicted, King Louis Philippe opened the palace as a museum. Europe's next-best palaces are Versailles wannabes.

Visiting Versailles can seem daunting because of its size and the hordes of visitors. Fortunately, new changes are making it easier. Before you go, read the "Orientation," below, to avoid wasting your time and money.

Versailles has two main areas with separate entries: the all-important Château (the main palace) and the less-important Domaine de Marie-Antoinette (the queen's estate). The entire complex is undergoing a complete renovation that may change entry points and exits. The information listed here is accurate as of late 2009. Still, expect some changes in fees and entry points.

Information

Visit Versailles' good website before you go: www.chateauversailles.fr. Versailles has two information offices: the town's official TI (helpful, less crowded), and one at the palace (books tours, but has long lines). Both sell palace tickets and Le Passeport passes. You'll go by the town TI on your walk from the main RER station to the palace — it's just past the Pullman Hôtel (daily April–Sept 9:00–19:00, Oct–March 9:00–18:00, tel. 01 39 24 88 88). The palace's information office is on the left side of the Château courtyard (as you face the Château, tel. 08 10 81 16 14). The useful Versailles Orientation Guide brochure explains your sightseeing options.

Orientation

Cost: The Château — the main palace — costs €13.50 (€10 after 15:00, under 18 always free, covered by Paris Museum Pass and Le Passeport pass, see below). The Château contains the Chapel, the Opera House (dazzling theater with chandeliers), the King's and Queen's State Apartments (with the famous Hall of Mirrors), the French History Galleries (rarely open), the Dauphin's Apartments (heirs to the throne), and the Mesdames Apartments (Louis XV's daughters, open weekends only); all are included with your Château ticket.

Entry to the Domaine de Marie-Antoinette, the estate of the queen, costs €10 from April through October (€6 after 16:00, under 18 always free; covered by Le Passeport and the Paris Museum Pass). In winter, it costs €6. Tickets are available at the entry to the Domaine or at the main Château ticket office. With this ticket, you'll see the queen's Hamlet, the Grand and Petit Trianons, and a smattering of other nearby buildings.

The gardens are free, except on April–Sept weekends, when the fountains blast and the price shoots up to €8 (see "Fountain Spectacles").

Passes: Many travelers arrive at Versailles with one of these two passes.

The Le Passeport one-day pass is a good deal for serious sightseers lacking a Paris Museum Pass (April–Oct it's €20 Mon–Fri, €25 Sat–Sun; Nov–March it's €16 Tue–Sun). The pass covers your entrance to just about everything, as well as audioguides. (The pass is a poor value on Mon, when only the Domaine de Marie-Antoinette and gardens are open.) The pass gives you access to all open sections of the Château, the Domaine de Marie-Antoinette, and the fountain spectacles (that flow only on spring and summer weekends — hence the higher weekend pass prices). Le Passeport passes are sold on the Internet, at FNAC stores in Paris, the TI in Versailles, and the palace itself (see www.chateauversailles.fr).

The Paris Museum Pass works at Versailles, covering entrance to the Château and the Domaine de Marie-Antoinette but not the gardens (on fountain spectacle weekends) or audioguides. Since a visit to Versailles can take up an entire sightseeing day, you'll likely get better use out of the Museum Pass in Paris, where it's easy to visit several sights in a day.

Hours: The Château is open April–Oct Tue–Sun 9:00–18:30, Nov–March Tue–Sun 9:00–17:30, closed Mon. The Domaine de Marie Antoinette is open daily April–Oct 12:00–18:30; Nov– March 12:00–17:30. The gardens are open daily from 9:00 to sunset (17:30 to 21:30), except on Sat in summer when they close at 18:00 to prepare for evening events. Last entry to all of these areas is one hour before closing.

When to Go: From May through September, Versailles can be a zoo between 10:00 and 13:00, and all day Tue and Sun. For fewer crowds, go early or late: Arrive by 9:00 (when the palace opens — tour the palace first, then the gardens). If you arrive later, tour the Gardens first and the Château after 13:00 when crowds dissipate (except on Tue and Sun, when the place is packed from open to close). Note that the last guided tours of the day generally depart by 15:00.

Pickpocket Alert: As you jostle through the crowded corridors of the palace, pickpockets will be working the tourist crowds.

Length of Visit: With the usual lines, allow 1.5 hours each for the Château, the Gardens, and the Domaine de Marie-Antoinette. Add another two hours for round-trip transit, plus another hour for lunch...and, at around eight hours, Versailles is a full day trip from Paris.

Baggage Check: Free checkrooms are at the main entrances to the main Château and the two Trianons. Use them to check forbidden items (food, big bags, baby carriages, and so on). Strollers are not allowed inside the Château, so today's a good day for parents to either hire a babysitter or carry the bébé in a backpack with a child-seat.

WCs: Reminiscent of the days when dukes urinated behind the potted palm trees, WCs are few and far between, and come with long lines. Use the public WC just before the palace gates, or find the quieter WC after you enter the Château (skip the lineup at the one in the entry courtyard). You'll also find WCs tucked away in several locations in the Gardens.

Cuisine Art: A cafeteria and WCs are to the right of the Château's golden gate. Sandwich kiosks and cafés are scattered about the Gardens (stop at the first one below the Château, as the others come with long lines). Two restaurants are near the Apollo Basin and canal. In the town, you'll find restaurants on the street to the right of the parking lot (as you face the Château), though the best eateries line the lively market square, place du Marché, in the town center. A handy McDonald's is immediately across from the train station (WC without crowds, Internet café next door). An appealing assortment of affordable restaurants line rue de Satory between the station and the palace.

Photography: Allowed indoors without a flash.

Welcome to Versailles

This commentary, which leads you through the various attractions at Versailles, covers just the basics. For more details, download our free audioguide tour of the State Apartments at www.ricksteves.com. If you don't have Rick's Paris guidebook, the guidebook called The Châteaux, The Gardens, and Trianon gives a more detailed room-by-room rundown (sold at Versailles).

Stand in front of the palace, in the central courtyard, with two of the palace's wings on either side of you. If you need to buy a ticket (or want to book a tour), go to the box office on the far left side of the courtyard. If you already have a ticket or pass, enter the Château through the modern glass entry just left of center (expect a line).

The Château: Enter the palace and take a one-way walk through the State Apartments from the King's Wing, through the Hall of Mirrors, and out via the Queen's Wing. The Hall of Mirrors was the ultimate hall of the day — 250 feet long, with 17 arched mirrors matching 17 windows with royal garden views, 24 gilded candelabra, eight busts of Roman emperors, and eight Classical-style statues (seven of them ancient). The ceiling is decorated with stories of Louis XIV's triumphs. Imagine this place filled with silk gowns and powdered wigs, lit by thousands of candles. The mirrors — a luxury at the time — were a reflection of an era when aristocrats felt good about their looks and their fortunes. In another age altogether, this was the room in which the Treaty of Versailles was signed, ending World War I.

Before going downstairs at the end, take a stroll clockwise around the Hall of Battles, the long room filled with murals depicting the great battles of France (rarely open, in the History of France Gallery).

Getting Around the Gardens: It's a 40-minute hike from the palace, down to the canal, past the two Trianon palaces to the Hamlet — the heart of the Domaine de Marie-Antoinette. Renting a bike (€6.50/hr, near the Grand Canal) gives you the most freedom to explore the gardens effortlessly, freely, and economically. The fast-looking, slow-moving tram (petit train) leaves from behind the Château (north side) and serves the Grand Canal and the Domaine. You can hop on and off as you like (€7, 4/hr, three stops, commentary is nearly worthless). Another option is to rent a golf cart for a fun drive through the gardens (€30/hr, pick up at Orangerie side of palace or down by the canal, shuts off automatically if you diverge from prescribed route which does not include the Domaine de Marie-Antoinette).

Palace Gardens: The gardens offer a world of royal amusements. Outside the palace is the Orangerie. The warmth from the Sun King was so great that he could even grow orange trees in chilly France. Louis XIV had a thousand of these to amaze his visitors. In winter, they were kept in the greenhouses that surround the courtyard. On sunny days, they were wheeled out in their silver planters and scattered around the grounds. A promenade leads from the palace to the Grand Canal, an artificial lake that, in Louis' day, was a mini-sea with nine ships, including a 32-cannon warship. France's royalty floated up and down the canal in Venetian gondolas.

Domaine de Marie-Antoinette (Marie-Antoinette's Estate): While Louis XIV cleverly used palace life at Versailles to "domesticate" his nobility, turning otherwise meddlesome nobles into groveling socialites, all this pomp and ceremony hampered the royal family as well. For an escape from the public life at Versailles, they built more intimate palaces as retreats in their garden. Later, his successors retreated still farther into the garden and built a fantasy world of simple pleasures, allowing them to ignore the real world that was crumbling all around them.

The beautifully restored Grand Trianon Palace is as sumptuous as the main palace, but much smaller. With its pastel-pink colonnade and more human scale, this is a place you'd like to call home. Nearby are the French Pavilion and the Petit Trianon, which has a fine Neoclassical exterior and an interior that can be skipped. It was Marie-Antoinette's favorite residence.

You can almost see princesses bobbing gaily in the branches as you walk through the enchanting forest, past the white marble Temple of Love to the queen's fake-peasant Hamlet (le Hameau). Palace life really got to Marie-Antoinette. Sort of a back-to-basics queen, she retreated further and further from her blue-blooded reality. Her happiest days were spent at the Hamlet, under a bonnet, tending her perfumed sheep and her manicured gardens in a thatch-happy wonderland.

Activities

Fountain Spectacles — On spring and summer weekends, classical music fills the king's backyard, and the garden's fountains are in full squirt (April–Sept Sat–Sun 11:00–12:00 & 15:30–17:00, finale from 17:20–17:30). On these " spray days," the gardens cost €8 (pay at ticket booth near golf-cart rental in the gardens; covered by Le Passeport but not Paris Museum Pass). Pick up the helpful Les Grandes Eaux Musicales brochure at any information or ticket booth. Louis had his engineers literally reroute a river to fuel these fountains. Even by today's standards, they are impressive. Also ask about the various impressive evening spectacles (Sat in July–Aug).

Equestrian Performances — The art of horseback riding has returned to Versailles. On most weekends from May through mid-December, you can watch the basic training sessions (no choreography), or enjoy choreographed performances—including "equestrian fencing" — performed to classical music (training sessions-€12, 60 min, Sat–Sun only at 11:15; musical shows-€25, Sun and some Thu at 15:00 plus Sat at 20:00 May–July and at 18:00 Sept–Dec, maybe also Tue–Sun mid-Feb–mid-March and April, but schedule is sporadic — check website for closure dates and extra performances). The stables (Grande Ecurie) are across the square from the Château, next to the post office. For information, call 01 39 02 07 14. For reservations, call 08 92 68 18 91 or visit www.acadequestre.fr.

Town of Versailles — After the palace closes and the tourists go, the prosperous, wholesome town of Versailles feels a long way from Paris. The central market thrives on place du Marché on Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday until 13:00 (leaving the RER station, turn right and walk 10 min). Consider the wisdom of picking up or dropping your rental car in Versailles rather than in Paris. In Versailles, the Hertz and Avis offices are at Gare des Chantiers (Versailles C.H., served by Paris' Montparnasse station).

Getting There

Take the RER-C train (4/hr, 30–40 min one-way, €6 round-trip) from any of these RER stops: Gare d'Austerlitz, St. Michel, Musée d'Orsay, Invalides, Pont de l'Alma, or Champ de Mars. Any train whose name starts with a V (e.g., "Vick") goes to Versailles; don't board other trains. Get off at the last stop (Versailles R.G., or "Rive Gauche"), and exit through the turnstiles by inserting your ticket. To reach the château, turn right out of the train station, then left at the first boulevard. It's a 10-minute walk to the palace.)

All trains leaving Versailles from the Rive Gauche station serve all downtown Paris RER stops on the C line.

Taxis for the 30-minute ride between Versailles and Paris cost about €55.

It's a 30-minute drive to reach Versailles from Paris by car, if the traffic's not bad. Get on the périphérique freeway that circles Paris, and take the toll-free A-13 autoroute toward Rouen. Follow signs into Versailles, then look for château signs and park in the huge pay lot (€4.80/2 hrs, €8.50/4 hrs, €13/8 hrs, free 19:30–8:30).