15 Things You Should Know About Going to Versailles in 2024

The Palace of Versailles, the final home of the prerevolutionary French kings and queens, is another of France’s bucket-list tourist sites and one of the most visited destinations in the world. It’s pretty much one of the first things Americans think of when they think of France (after the wine-drinking, beret-wearing, cheese-eating, and baguettes, of course), encapsulating a sophistication and worldliness that seems impossible to catch up to but also a backward-looking mentality and obsession with the past that never quite jibes with Americans’ innate optimism and dogged pursuit of the next big thing.

On a weeklong visit to friends who live down the street from the Palace of Versailles, my family and I dedicated 2 whole days to exploring this cultural icon, 1 to the chateau itself and another just to the gardens. It instantly became one of our favorite places in France, and we’d go back in a heartbeat, but there are things we wished we’d known beforehand.

Here’s what you should know about going to Versailles.

1. Book in Advance

My family and I were lucky: Using a combination of our local friends’ memberships and media accreditation (government-issued or on that level of an institution with instant and universal recognition— don’t expect them to let you in because you have a blog or vlog), we managed to get into the palace after a brief visit to the press office.

But I’ve heard enough stories from other friends to know that you need to buy your tickets well in advance — weeks, not days — and reserve a time slot. Because the ticket windows for entry are short (30 minutes) and the lines are long (sometimes over an hour), you should get in line before your appointed time.

The tickets cost €12 ($13) and up and vary depending on whether you want to see just the palace, just the gardens, just the Trianon estate, or the whole shebang. You can also include a boat ride, bike rental, train ticket, meal, or shows.

But unless you really only have 1 day to take it all in, it’s better not to get the all-inclusive Passport ticket because …

2. The Palace Is Big. The Gardens Are Gargantuan.

… you’ll run yourself ragged and enjoy it all less if you try to cram everything in.

The palace is huge, and there are sections that are usually off-limits except for special events or exhibits. Our friends, who, understandably, were sick of doing the usual route (they go some 30 times a year for work events and to humor out-of-towners like us), split off early in the morning to see a new hall that had been reconstructed and was open to certain members. We didn’t run into them again until the afternoon.

And the gardens are even bigger — 2,000 acres. To put it in perspective, that’s more than double the size of Central Park in New York City or Disneyland Shanghai (the biggest international Disney resort). It’s 19 times the size of the Magic Kingdom in Florida and 20 times the size of the original Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

The easiest and cheapest way to get around the gardens is to hop on the regular Le Petits Trains (“The Little Train”), which runs every few minutes in a circuit around the major points of interest of the garden and then to the back of the palace. It costs €9 ($10) for a full fare and is basically a hop-on, hop-off situation — you only have to pay for a ticket once, and it’s good for the day. (Hang onto that ticket to show the driver each time!)

You could also rent golf carts (€42.50, or about $47, for 1 hour, plus €10.50, or about $12, for each additional 15 minutes), though that seemed to defeat the purpose of wandering around the gardens.

Finally, you could also rent a rowboat (€16, or $17, for 30 minutes), though the only place to row anywhere is the Grand Canal.

Hot Tip:

Wear comfortable shoes. You’ll be walking a lot.

3. Palace: The Crowds Thin Out After the Hall of Mirrors

The worst spot in all of Versailles is the worst because it’s right before the spot that everyone thinks is the most amazing. I’m talking about the doorway that leads into the Hall of Mirrors, which gets so clotted with tourists taking photos that the surge of people just has to stop until everyone’s done taking their pics (with hundreds of other people taking pics in the Hall of Mirrors) — think of that constant ring of human beings around the “Mona Lisa” in the Louvre.

Of course, once you’re actually through the doorway, it gets less crowded, but you’re still dealing with the same hundreds of people taking selfies in the Hall of Mirrors. You’re not going to get any shots without countless strangers in it here, but the good news is that past this point, the crowds generally loosen up.

4. Palace: But You’ll Still Be Swimming in Crowds

But not entirely. And you have to get used to the fact that there will be lots of people almost anywhere in the palace. For example, during our visit, the Room of Abundance (part of the King’s State Apartment) was shoulder to shoulder at points, with tour guides blocking views by annoyingly waving around flags to keep their groups together.

In the private chambers and smaller rooms, you have to shuffle past the roped-off exhibits in a human stream of gawkers that funnels through the narrow passageways. If you lose a party member or have to go backward for any reason, you’ll be swimming upstream. It can all feel claustrophobic.

So it feels wonderful when you can escape the well-beaten path and discover what everyone else is seemingly ignoring inside the palace, like the almost desolate galleries of statues.

5: Gardens: They’re Better Than the Palace

Many people go to the palace, thinking that’s where the main show’s at, then skip the gardens entirely. That’s a huge mistake: The Versailles Gardens are the real star of Versailles.

You can (and should) spend a whole exploring the gardens, getting lost in the labyrinthine hedges, marveling at the secret grottoes and fountain shows, checking out the statuary, and, of course, stepping into the shoes of French kings, their mistresses, and Marie Antoinette in the more modest buildings they considered their real homes.

Plus, the crowds are much, much easier to handle, both because so many people skip out after checking the palace off their list and because everyone there thins out over 2,000 acres.

To get the most out of the gardens, including a map and the schedule for events like the fountain shows, download the free Palace of Versailles app, which doesn’t require an internet connection to work.

6. Gardens: Find the Groves

Seemingly hidden throughout the gardens are over a dozen so-called groves, painstakingly designed spaces that showcase architecture or highlight the beauty of the natural surroundings. They’re all quite different from each other, and they’re all a delight.

Some are historically significant, too, like the Ballroom Grove with its cascading miniature waterfalls, where Louis XIV’s oldest son, the dauphin, held a legendary grand ball (you can still rent the space for events). Onlookers could watch couples dancing the minuet or gavotte from opposite the fountains, which were fed by a pump from the Seine miles away.

7. Gardens: The Fountains Are Useful Landmarks

The gardens were designed so that there would be fountains of various sizes at important junctures. Some of these are relatively small, but some of them are large and impossible to miss. The Grand Canal and Bassin de Neptune are enormous. Regardless of their size, though, they’re all different and thus good landmarks to use when you’re trying to orient yourself and figure out where to go next on these massive grounds.

8. Gardens: Keep an Eye Out for Statues, Buildings, and Other Finds

Every time you turn a corner in the Versailles Gardens, you run into yet another charming structure, statue, or design element that reminds you how much care went into the design of these spaces. The Belvedere, for example, was constructed with windows and doors on every side that opened to let in maximum light and cool breezes as Marie Antoinette and her companions lounged there in the summer.

The four seasons are a constant theme throughout the gardens, and if you give yourself a little leeway to see things in hindsight, the striking figures of the personification of winter you can find can seem to foreshadow the looming end of the reign of the House of Bourbon.

9. Gardens: The Grand Trianon Is Like a Miniature Versailles

Built for Louis XIV’s influential mistress, the Grand Trianon is like a miniature version of Versailles Palace that can be an alternative to the big chateau. You can tour the intimate interior rooms of France’s most powerful people, just like at the big palace.

Though the crowds are technically smaller, the Grand Trianon is a smaller palace, so it can feel equally crowded as you squeeze through the narrow pathways past the antique furnishings and ghosts of headless royals and aristocrats.

And, no, you cannot play pool on the pool table downstairs.

The Grand Trianon also houses a small textile museum that teaches visitors about the jaw-dropping complexity and craftsmanship of the period’s ornate and sumptuous cloths.

10. Gardens: The Petit Trianon Brings It Back Down to Human Scale

When you’re a royal, you can have a little palace for your palace. That was the Grand Trianon. When you’re a height-of-French-royalty-royal, you can have a littler palace for your little palace. That was the Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette’s home inside her home and possibly her favorite place on earth.

It’s impossible at Petit Trianon not to see how the French royal family built a bubble for themselves that didn’t do them any favors when the people came calling for their heads (the building was designed with dumbwaiters and mechanisms so the queen and her closest friends could see and interact with as few servants as possible). And it’s also impossible not to find the place charming and, especially compared to the lavishness of court life at the main palace, relatable and even somewhat modest. You come away from the Petit Trianon feeling sorry for the doomed queen.

One of the most telling details of how much she loved this palace is that the window by her bed in her private bedchamber has a direct view of the Temple of Love, a neoclassical marble open structure.

You can then walk to the Temple of Love and see exactly what Marie Antoinette must have stared out at countless times in the morning and at night.

Much more than the over-the-top grandness of the main palace, the human scale of the Petit Trianon and immediate surroundings remind you that this was a real family that met a tragic end, trapped in circumstances that they, despite their bloodline, really had no control over.

11. Gardens: The Hameau de la Reine Is the Best Part of Versailles

If you follow the same general route that we did (and I suspect most first-timers do), you’ll be blown away by the majesty of the Versailles Palace, get lost in the expansive gardens and seemingly endless palace gardens, take a breather and recover somewhat with the toned-down grandiosity of the Grand Trianon, be touched by the quaintness (again, relatively speaking) of the Petit Trianon, and then walk through a bucolic winding path or 2 and then suddenly find yourself in the Shire.

Yeah, the one with the hobbits.

The Hameau de la Reine (the Hamlet of the Queen) was a mock-up of a provincial French farming village that Marie Antoinette had built, reflecting a nature-loving trend in philosophy, architecture, and art in vogue at the time. Marie Antoinette went on walks and had small parties here with her closest friends.

It was also a real working farm, and it continues to be home to several kinds of farm animals today. A real farming family lived on the farm and used the milk they got from the cows and eggs from the chickens to supply the palace. Today, farmhands still maintain it, and you can see them working with the animals as the tourists snap their pics.

During the French Revolution, the antiroyalists used the existence of the Hameau as propaganda against the queen. Many people still believe that Marie Antoinette used the mock village as a giant dollhouse set, pretending to be a simple milkmaid, which there’s no evidence for. (The 2006 movie “Marie Antoinette” seems to have helped perpetuate that fiction.)

12. Gardens: There Are Various Events Throughout the Day

Versailles Gardens puts on various events throughout the day in some seasons, including fountain water shows and musical events in the groves during the evenings. Check the calendar to see what events are on for the day or evening you’re visiting.

The Great Stables are open on Saturdays and Sundays in the spring and summer until October. They’re free to visit. They’re not actually on the main grounds of the palace but directly across the street from the main visitors’ entrance.

Hot Tip:

The official Palace of Versailles app will let you know when there are shows and where they are.

13. There’s Food and Drinks in Both the Palace and the Gardens

There are places to eat all over Versailles — from cafes to restaurants — in the palace itself, in the Trianons, and in the gardens.

In the gardens, the 2 fancy sit-down restaurants are by the Grand Canal. You can get takeaway snacks around here, as well, or at the cafes closer to Versailles Palace in the forest paths. (Look for the sandwich boards with signs pointing the way.) Both the Trianons also have a cafe or small cafeteria, too. You can also picnic at marked spots in the gardens. (There are groceries and bakeries within walking distance of the main entrance to Versailles Palace.)

In Versailles Palace, you can eat at Angelina, which you can enter via the Royal Courtyard; the Grand Café d’Orléans in the pavillion d’Orléans; or the ORE restaurant in the pavillion Dufour.

And, you can buy Maison Ladurée macarons inside Versailles Palace, of course.

14. There’s Shopping, Too

Besides the Ladurée, there are souvenir shops inside the palace. The Librairie des Princes bookstore (which also has games) is to the left of the Courtyard of Honor.

You can even buy official Versailles sneakers (by French company Le Lissier).

15. It’s Really Worth Going To

Even if you’re not a European history buff and aren’t into the grandeur, architecture, fashion, or art, Versailles is an incredible place to visit that has more than earned its place on most tourists’ bucket lists. I somehow missed coming here for decades and, after finally making it here, knew that that had been a mistake and that I should’ve made a higher priority. It’s one of those rare overtouristed destinations that’s actually worth the hype. If Versailles isn’t already on your bucket list, add it now.

Final Thoughts

When the regular French population broke through the gates of Versailles and saw the splendor that their rulers had lived in for generations, then thought back on their own squalor and the hopelessness of their situations and that of their children, they were outraged, to say the least.

After a brief restoration and a couple of flirtations with a Napoleonic dynastic empire, France said its final farewell to a monarchy a long time ago. The beautiful things and places the onetime kings left behind have become the Fifth Republic and modern France’s most treasured relics, precious pieces of history and art that now belong to all the people — not just the ones at the top.

If Versailles is a destination on your bucket list, don’t put off a visit, and make sure you spend enough time exploring this most heavenly look at the past. And if it’s not on your bucket list, it should be.