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 just Versailles wannabes.
Visiting Versailles can seem daunting because of its size and the hordes of visitors. 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). Versailles is a complex site that always seems to be undergoing changes, so always pick up our latest Paris guidebook before you go.
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.
Pickpocket Alert: As you jostle through the crowded corridors of the palace, pickpockets will be working the tourist crowds.
Welcome to Versailles
Versailles' highlights are the State Apartments (including the magnificent Hall of Mirrors) and the gardens, dotted with the Domaine de Marie-Antoinette.
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).
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 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. Another option is to rent a golf cart for a fun drive through the gardens (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 during certain hours. On these " spray days," they charge a fee for the gardens (pay at ticket booth near golf-cart rental in the gardens). 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. The stables (Grande Ecurie) are across the square from the Château, next to the post office.
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. Consider the wisdom of picking up or dropping your rental car in Versailles rather than in Paris.
For up-to-date specifics, see the latest edition of the Rick Steves' Paris travel guide. We also offer free-spirited Paris tours.