Palace of Versailles Tours — Frequently Asked Questions

From $75 per person for a guided day out of Paris with the train and Palace entry included, up to around $614 for a private car, a private guide and your party alone. Most guided departures sit between $80 and $140. Every fare we list is the operator's own starting price and covers admission.

Yes. Entry to the Palace runs on timed slots, guided groups hold those slots as a block, and the busiest days sell out days ahead. Booking early costs nothing, because every tour listed here refunds in full up to 24 hours before it starts.

A week is comfortable between November and March, and two to three weeks is safer from April to October and around any French public holiday. Tuesday is the worst day of the week to leave to chance, because the Palace is closed on Mondays and Tuesday absorbs the overflow.

Yes, up to 24 hours before the start time, for a full refund, on every tour listed here. Inside that window a cancellation is not refunded, so move the booking as soon as the plan changes. Two operators also reserve the right to cancel for bad weather or too few bookings, and both refund in full when they do.

You will very likely miss the tour, and that is the single most common complaint in the reviews of every operator here. A guided group enters on one timed slot and cannot be held. Read the joining instructions the night before and allow twenty minutes more than you think you need for the last leg.

Yes, up to 24 hours before the start, on the same terms as a cancellation. Inside that window a change counts as a cancellation on most of these listings. Watch the forecast the day before rather than on the morning.

The Palace runs whatever the weather, so a guided interior tour goes ahead. The bike days state plainly that they operate in all conditions and ask you to dress for it, though two operators may cancel for genuinely bad weather and refund in full. The gardens are the part of the day that a wet morning actually spoils.

At a minimum, timed Palace entry and a licensed guide inside the State Apartments. Most also include the gardens; several include the Trianon estate and the Queen's Hamlet, and about half include transport from Paris. What none of them includes is food, and gratuities are excluded on nearly every listing.

It depends on the month. From November to late March the gardens are free to everyone, every day, so no ticket covers or needs to cover them. From April to early November a garden ticket is needed on Musical Gardens and Musical Fountains Show days, and some guided departures bundle it while others exclude it explicitly.

It skips the ticket queue, not the security queue. A timed Passport guarantees entry to the Palace within half an hour of the time you chose, which is a slot rather than a fast lane. On peak days the estate's own security checks slow that slot down, and several operators say so in their own booking notes.

The Palace with a timed slot, the Estate of Trianon, the gardens and the temporary exhibitions. It costs €35 in high season and €25 from November to March, with a reduced rate of €32. It is the ticket to buy if you intend to reach Marie-Antoinette's estate at all.

The Grand Trianon, the Petit Trianon, their gardens and the Queen's Hamlet, at €15 or €12 reduced. It does not open the Palace. It is the cheaper choice only if you are skipping the State Apartments entirely, which very few visitors do.

Yes, in three cases the estate publishes. Entry to the Palace and the Trianon estate is free for under-18s and for under-26s resident in the EU, though a time slot still has to be booked. The whole estate is also free on the first Sunday of the month from November to March, and the gardens are free to everybody every day in that same low season.

Yes, it is sold separately from Palace admission, and it is the reason a garden ticket exists between April and November. Several guided departures include garden access on show days and one or two guide you round the gardens as well. Check the inclusions on the tour you are looking at, because operators split on this more than on anything else.

Yes. Free admission is not the same as walk-in admission: the estate asks every visitor, paying or not, to hold a time slot for the Palace. Book the free ticket the same way and at the same time as the paid ones in your party.

The estate's rule is under-26 and resident in the European Union, and residency rather than nationality is what it turns on. Carry proof, because it is checked at the door. If there is any doubt in your party, book the paid ticket and ask at the desk.

No. Versailles is its own town in the Yvelines, about 20 km south-west of Paris, and the journey takes 35 to 60 minutes depending on the line. That is the single most common misunderstanding about this visit, and it is why so many tours sell the transport rather than just the ticket.

Yes, the Palace and the Trianon estate are both closed every Monday, along with 25 December, 1 January and 1 May. The gardens and the park stay open every day of the year. If Monday is your only free day, the gardens and the Grand Canal are still worth the trip and cost nothing in low season.

Midday, every day it is open, in both seasons. That single fact decides more Versailles itineraries than any other: a morning half-day tour physically cannot include the Grand Trianon, the Petit Trianon or the Queen's Hamlet. Plan them for the afternoon or book a full day.

Ninety minutes covers the State Apartments at a guided pace. Add the gardens and you are at three to four hours; add the Trianon estate and the Queen's Hamlet and it is a full day. The estate's own suggested plan is the Palace at nine, the gardens from ten to midday, and Trianon from midday to half past four.

Six of the departures listed here do, by RER train, coach or minibus, and three of those add hotel pickup. The rest meet you in Versailles and leave the journey to you. The transport ones cost more and take longer; what they buy is not having to work out the RER on the morning.

A half day is the Palace and usually the gardens, in three to four hours. A full day adds the Trianon estate and the Queen's Hamlet, which cannot open before midday, so the extra hours are real rather than padding. Several operators sell both as grades of the same product.

RER C to Versailles Château – Rive Gauche is the closest, about ten minutes' walk. Gare Montparnasse to Versailles Chantiers and Gare Saint-Lazare to Versailles Rive Droite both leave a 17 to 18 minute walk. Take whichever leaves from the station nearest your hotel — the walk difference is smaller than the Metro ride to the wrong terminus.

Small bags yes, large bags and suitcases no. The automatic lockers take items up to 46 × 43 × 26 cm, so a day pack is fine and cabin luggage is not. Travel light if you are visiting on the way to or from an airport.

Nowhere on the estate that will take one. The lockers are sized for day bags, so a suitcase has to stay at your hotel or in a Paris station locker. Every guided departure here assumes you arrive without one.

Yes, there are cafes and restaurants on the estate and in the town, but no tour listed here includes a meal and several exclude food and drink explicitly. The gardens and the park allow picnics, which is what the bike days build the middle of their day around. Carry water in summer — the State Apartments have no air conditioning.

Yes, but they are spread thinly across 800 hectares and reviewers on more than one operator mention exactly that. Use the facilities before the guided section starts rather than after it. There is a long stretch between the Palace and the Trianon estate with very little.

Yes, without flash. That is the estate's own rule and it is enforced in the State Apartments. Tripods and selfie sticks are not welcome in the crowded rooms, which in practice is most of them between April and October.

Yes, though the estate rewards a plan. The Queen's Hamlet has a working farm, the park takes bikes and boats, and the gardens absorb energy that the State Apartments do not. Two of the coach departures here will not carry children under six, and strollers can be turned away at the Palace door, so check both before booking.

The estate lends wheelchairs and publishes step-free routes, and most guided departures state that their own tour is not wheelchair accessible — that is the operator's assessment of their vehicle and their route. One private departure states that it is accessible and that its transport is too. Book that one, or visit independently with the estate's own arrangements.

About ten minutes from Versailles Château – Rive Gauche and 17 to 18 minutes from Chantiers or Rive Droite, all of it on level pavement and then cobbles. The cobbled section in front of the Palace is the part to watch your footing on. Wear something you can stand up in for four hours.

The Palace holds 2,300 rooms across 63,154 square metres, and the park around it covers about 800 hectares. Those two numbers are why a half-day and a full-day visit are genuinely different days out rather than the same one at different speeds.

The Hall of Mirrors is 73 metres long, with 357 mirrors set into the 17 arches facing the windows. Jules Hardouin-Mansart built it between 1678 and 1684 over what had been an open terrace, and Charles Le Brun painted the 30 compositions on the vault above it.

The Treaty of Versailles, on 28 June 1919, ending the First World War. The German Empire had been proclaimed in the same room in 1871, which is part of why that room was chosen. Both events happened where visitors now queue for photographs.

Louis XIII put a hunting lodge here in 1624 and rebuilt it between 1631 and 1634; Louis XIV began the great expansion in 1661 and moved the court and the government in during 1682. The brick and stone core of that first lodge is still standing at the centre of the Marble Court.

André Le Nôtre, from 1661, on a commission from Louis XIV that took him roughly forty years. The Grand Canal at the far end of his central axis is 1,670 metres long and was dug between 1668 and 1679.

A working model farm and village built for Marie-Antoinette between 1783 and 1786 under Richard Mique, modelled on the rustic buildings of Normandy. It has a windmill and a dairy as well as a dining room, a salon, a billiard room and a boudoir. It sits in the Trianon estate and opens at midday with the rest of it.

Yes, listed in 1979. The listing covers the Palace and its park, not the Palace alone, which is a fair description of what a visit actually involves.

Because that is formally what it is. Louis-Philippe founded a museum here in 1833 dedicated to all the glories of France and opened it in 1837, and the dedication is still carved across the pediment above the courtyard. The royal apartments are one part of a much larger collection.