Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
TOP SIGHT
VERSAILLES
Louis XIV transformed his father's hunting lodge into the monumental
Château de Versailles in the mid-17th century, and it remains France's most
famous, grandest palace. Situated in the leafy bourgeois suburb of Versailles,
22km southwest of Paris, the baroque château was the kingdom's political
capital and the seat of the royal court from 1682 until the French Revolution
in 1789.
Intending the château to house his court of 6000 people, Louis XIV hired four talented
men to take on the gargantuan task: architect Louis Le Vau; Jules Hardouin-Mansart, who
took over from Le Vau in the mid-1670s; painter and interior designer Charles Le Brun; and
landscape designer André Le Nôtre, under whom entire hills were flattened, marshes
drained and forests moved to create the seemingly endless gardens, ponds and fountains for
which Versailles is so well known. It has been on Unesco's World Heritage list since 1979.
Sprawling over 900 hectares, the estate is divided into four main sections: the 580m-long
palace; the gardens, canals and pools to the west of the palace; two smaller palaces, the
Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon, to the northwest; and the Hameau de la Reine (Queen's
Hamlet) north of the Petit Trianon.
Tickets include an English-language audioguide. For an offbeat insight, check out the in-
dependent app Happy Versailles (
www.happy-visit-versailles.com
; €2.69).
Versailles is easy to reach from Paris. The most convenient option is to take
RER C5
(€3.25, 45 minutes, frequent), which goes from Paris' Left Bank RER stations to Versailles-
Château - Rive Gauche station. There are also other rail connections, buses and organised
tours.
