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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.

Versailles is undergoing a complete reorganization to better accommodate the hordes of visitors it welcomes every year. The information listed here is accurate as of August 2006, and most should still apply in 2007. Still, expect some changes in entry fees and to entry points.

Visiting Versailles can seem daunting because of its size. Fortunately, the new changes are making it easier. There are two areas with separate entries: the all-important château and the less-important Domaine de Marie-Antoinette, comprised of buildings in the gardens where the queen frolicked.

Information

To plan your visit before you go, visit Versailles' good Web site (www.chateauversailles.fr) or call 01 30 83 78 00. If you're taking an MP3 player (such as an iPod), download my free audio tour of Versailles before you go (at www.ricksteves.com or www.itunes.com; there are also other fun audio and video podcasts at www.podcast.chateauversailles.fr). A helpful TI is just past the Sofitel Hôtel on your walk from the RER station to the palace (daily April–Sept 9:00–19:00, Oct–March 9:00–18:00, sells Versailles One-Day Pass, tel. 01 39 24 88 88, www.versailles-tourisme.com). You’ll also find information booths inside the château and, during peak season, information kiosks scattered around the courtyard. The useful Versailles Orientation Guide brochure explains your sightseeing options.

Cost

The château (palace) costs €13.50 (under 18 free). Entry to the palace is covered by the Paris Museum Pass and the Versailles One-Day Pass (described below). The château contains the State Apartments (with the famous Hall of Mirrors), the Private Apartments, the Chapel, the Opera House, the new History of France Galleries, the Dauphin's Apartments, and the Mesdames Apartments; all are included in your château ticket.

Entry to the Domaine de Marie-Antoinette costs €9 (under 18 free, also covered by Versailles One-Day Pass, but not covered by Paris Museum Pass). With this ticket, you'll get see the Grand and Petit Trianons (though the Petit Trianon is expected to be closed for most of 2007), the Summer House, the Hamlet, 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.

The Versailles One-Day Pass (called Le Passeport) is a deal for busy sightseers who don't have a Paris Museum Pass. The price depends on time of year: April-Oct it's €20 Mon-Fri, €25 Sat-Sun; Nov-March it's €16 daily. The pass covers your entrance to just about everything, gives you cut-the-line privileges, and provides audioguides throughout your visit. If you’re seeing everything (and don’t have a Paris Museum Pass), this is a time and a money-saver. The pass gives you priority access to the château and the Domaine de Marie-Antoinette, and also covers the shuttle train around the gardens and Les Grandes Eaux Musicales (see “Fountain Spectacles,” below; note that these run only on summer weekends). If you buy this pass in Paris, it also covers your train ride to and from Paris (sold at RER stations that serve Versailles, the Ile de France TI in the Louvre, the TI in Versailles, and at Versailles itself).

Versailles-aholics should plan ahead, and not use a day from the Paris Museum Pass, but go with the Versailles One-Day Pass instead.

Hours

The château is open April–Oct Tue–Sun 9:00–18:30, closed Mon; Nov–March Tue–Sun 9:00–17:30, closed Mon. Last entry is 30 minutes before closing. The Domaine de Marie-Antoinette is open April–Oct daily 12:00–19:30, buildings close at 18:00; Nov–March daily 9:00–17:30, buildings close at 17:00. The gardens are open daily from 9:00 to sunset (as late as 21:30 or as early as 17:30).

When to Go

In summer, Versailles is especially crowded between 10:00 and 13:00, and all day Tue and Sun. For fewer crowds, go early or late: Either arrive by 9:00 (when the palace opens, touring the palace first, then the gardens) or arrive later, see the gardens first, and tour the château after 15:30 (you’ll get a reduced entry ticket, but note that the last guided tours of the day generally depart at 15:00, though sometimes as late as 16:00). The gardens and palace are great late. On one of my visits, I was the only tourist in the Hall of Mirrors at 18:00...even on a Tuesday.

The Château (palace)

For details on touring the palace on your own, see Rick's Paris guidebook. Most visitors 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 and Nobles' 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 (7 are ancient originals). The ceiling is decorated with stories of Louis' triumphs. Imagine this place filled with silk gowns and powdered wigs, lit by thousands of candles. The mirrors—a luxurious rarity at the time—were a reflection of a time 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 the great battles of France murals.

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 10:30–12:00 & 15:00–16:30, finale from 16:50–17:00). On these “spray days,” the gardens cost €8 (not covered by Paris Museum Pass, but covered by Versailles One-Day Pass; ask for a map of fountains). Louis had his engineers literally reroute a river to fuel these fountains. Even by today’s standards, they are impressive. Pick up the helpful Les Grandes Eaux Musicales brochure at any information booth. Also ask about the various impressive evening spectacles (Sat in July–Aug).

Palace Gardens

The gardens offer a world of royal amusements. Outside the palace is l'orangerie. Louis, the only person who could grow oranges in Paris, had a mobile orange grove that could be wheeled in and out of his greenhouses according to the weather. 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 used to float up and down the canal in Venetian gondolas.

While Louis 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. Before the Revolution there was plenty of space to retreat — the grounds were enclosed by a 25-mile-long fence.

Domaine de Marie-Antoinette

To continue our tour in the Queen's playground, you'll have to pay a separate €9 entry fee (see "Cost,” above) — unless you have the Versailles One-Day Pass.

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. The nearby Petit Trianon, which has a fine neoclassical exterior and a skippable interior, 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 (1778) to the queen's fake-peasant Hamlet (le Hameau; interior not tourable). 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, "supervising" her perfumed sheep and her manicured gardens in a thatch-happy wonderland.

Getting Around the Gardens

It’s a 50-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. The fast-looking, slow-moving tram for tired tourists leaves from behind the château (north side) and serves the Grand Canal and Domaine de Marie-Antoinette. You can hop on and off as you like (€6, free with Versailles One-Day Pass, 4/hour, 4 stops, commentary is nearly worthless). Anyone can rent golf carts (€28/hour, pick up at Orangerie side of palace) for a fun drive through the gardens. A horse carriage also departs from the north side of the palace. Renting a bike (€6/hr, near the Grand Canal) gives you the most freedom to explore the gardens effortlessly, freely, and economically.

Length of Visit

Plan on two to three hours for the château, one hour for the gardens, and another two hours if you want to include the Domaine de Marie-Antoinette in your visit. Add two hours to cover your round-trip transit time, and it’s a five- to ten-hour day trip from Paris.

Getting There

Take the RER-C train (every 15 min, €6 round-trip, or included in Versailles One-Day Pass if you buy it in Paris — see above, 40 min one-way) 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” — not Versailles C.H., which is farther from the palace), 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.

Your Eurailpass covers this inexpensive trip, but it uses up a valuable “flexi” day. To get free passage, show your railpass at an SCNF ticket window — for example, at the Invalides or Musée d’Orsay RER stop — and get a contremarque de passage. Keep this ticket to exit the system.

When returning to Paris from Versailles, look through the windows past the turnstiles for the departure board. Any train leaving Versailles serves all downtown Paris RER stops on the C line (they’re marked on the schedule as stopping at “toutes les gares jusqu’à Austerlitz,” meaning “all stations up to Austerlitz”).

Taxis for the 30-minute ride between Versailles and Paris cost about €35.

To reach Versailles from Paris by car, use the périphérique freeway that circles Paris, and take the toll-free A13 autoroute toward Rouen. Follow signs into Versailles, then look for château signs and park in the huge pay lot in front of the palace. The drive takes about 30 minutes one-way.