Palace of Versailles: tickets, hours and tours

The Hall of Mirrors and the royal rooms

Everyone walks through the Hall of Mirrors, and it is still a shock. 578 mirrors face 17 tall windows that look onto the gardens, and the painted vault above, by Charles Le Brun, tells the story of the king's reign in 30 scenes. Work began in 1678. Much later, on 28 June 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed in this room.

On the first floor are the Grand Apartments of the King and the Queen, seven rooms each. In 1701 Louis XIV transformed the King's bedchamber, and it was here that he died on 1 September 1715. The Royal Chapel, 40 metres high, was finished in 1710, and the Royal Opera, almost entirely built of wood painted to look like marble, opened on 16 May 1770 for a royal wedding.

For more than a hundred years this was the centre of France. From 1682 the king, the court and the government lived here, until the royal family left in October 1789. A guided tour is a good idea: it takes you through the rooms in the right order and tells you who lived in each one.

The gardens and the fountains

The gardens were laid out by André Le Nôtre about 93 hectares of lawns, flower beds and clipped hedges, inside a park of roughly 815 hectares. The Grand Canal is 1,500 metres long and 62 metres wide, and it was dug between 1668 and 1671. Walk down to it from the palace and look back: the whole façade opens up behind you.

On show days the fountains play to music. In 2026 the Musical Fountains Show runs every Saturday and Sunday from 4 April to 1 November, plus Tuesdays from 5 May to 30 June, and on Saturday evenings from 6 June to 19 September there is a night show. On these days the gardens need a ticket, and the gardens-only ticket includes the show. The calendar changes every year, so choose a show day when you book.

The groves and the Apollo Baths

Away from the main avenues the gardens turn into a series of hidden groves. One of the prettiest is the Bosquet des Bains d'Apollon, a rocky grotto covered in greenery, with marble statues. The Latona Fountain, rebuilt in 1686-87, and the Apollo Basin lie along the main axis.

If you only have a morning, walk the gardens first and leave the palace for the late afternoon. If you have a full day, do the opposite: the rooms in the morning, the gardens next and the Trianon in the afternoon.

The Trianon and the Queen's Hamlet

The Trianon estate is at the far end of the gardens, and it feels like another world. The Grand Trianon was built in 1687 by Jules Hardouin-Mansart for Louis XIV, as a private retreat away from the court; Napoleon and several later rulers lived here too. The Petit Trianon, by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, was built between 1763 and 1768, and in 1774 Louis XVI gave it to Marie Antoinette.

Nearby is the Queen's Theatre, from 1780, with about 100 seats, and the Queen's Hamlet, ordered in 1783: a little village with a mill, a dovecote, a dairy and a working farm that supplied the kitchens. The Trianon opens at noon, and on foot it is about 25 to 30 minutes from the palace, so go there in the afternoon.