To make the most of your visit at Versailles, plan to spend a full day in the estate. Read our advices to better organize your visit. Guided tours allow you to visit otherwise closed rooms and then to directly join free visit routes.
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Within half a day, you will have the opportunity of discovering all the richness of the castle, visiting the Hall of Mirrors and the royal apartments inside, but also the famous French style gardens. We propose two visits each day, departure from Paris center. The ideal formula to discover Versailles in half a day !
If you do not plan on renting a golf cart or bike and want to explore the gardens or other areas of the Versailles estate, make sure you wear comfortable shoes. Sneakers will be the best choice as there are some areas where you have to walk on dirt and/or rock pebbles.
Access to the Versailles Palace and gardensTo start your visit, you will pass two entry points: one before you purchase tickets and another when you go through security. The wait time for each of these is one hour, according to testimonials. In other words, you must wait in line twice for one visit.
Passport tickets with timed entry grant priority admission and are valid for thirty minutes every hour, at 9am, 10am, 11am, 12pm, 1pm, 2pm and 3pm. Priority admission to the Palace is permitted once only at the booked time on the ticket. There is no timed entry for the estate of Trianon.
A one-way trip between Paris and Versailles by Uber or taxi will typically cost you a minimum of around 40€ - 50€, assuming no major traffic jams and depending on your specific Paris location.
We suggest arriving right at opening time—if not a little before. If you did not pre-purchase Versailles admissions or a tour, avoid touring the palace in the late morning and afternoon, when crowds are at their peak.
In Summer, don't forget a cap, solar cream and little bottle of water (50 cl maximum to be allowed during the Palace of Versailles' visit). In wet weather, don't forget a folding umbrella. Becareful : Umbrella that doesn't bend are forbidden inside the Palace of Versailles.
Visitors to the Palace must book in advance and select a specific time slot. We highly recommend that visitors pre-book their tickets online. Once you have booked your ticket online and printed it, go directly with your ticket to Entrance A of the Palace. Visitors eligible for free admission must pre-book online.
What may happen if I arrive late for my tour to Versailles? Each reservations done to the Palace by ourselves is for an exact date and hour. It is not possible to make another way. Thousands of visitors are coming to Versailles every days and the administration of the Palace can't accept visitors who are late.
No, a national identity card/passport, or a digital copy of it, is sufficient. Are the Palace Gardens open on Mondays? Yes, although the Palace and Trianon's Estate are closed, the Palace Gardens and the Park are open and admission is free.
Booking and accessTo access the Palace, all visitors must book a time slot. Due to the high number of visitors, admission to the Palace within half an hour of the booked time slot can only be guaranteed for tickets purchased online. The Palace closes at 6:30 pm, evacuation begins at 6:00 pm.
As a rule of thumb, it is not recommended that you visit Versailles between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. without a skip-the-line ticket. Naturally, the off season (November to March) is generally when wait times are the shortest. Also be sure to avoid “deal days” like the Journées du Patrimoine or July 14th.
1. Best Time to Visit Versailles. The best time to visit Versailles is in spring or autumn because the site is less crowded than in summer. The garden shows usually take place between April and October, and they are also lovely in the shoulder seasons.
RER C TrainThe RER C line (yellow) will take you from Paris to Versailles for just €3.65 ($4) per person each way. This train travels through Paris from east to west while following the river Seine. Each station is about 10 minutes from the next stop, and the train comes every 15 minutes.