Versailles Palace Bike Tour with Market & Marie-Antoinette hamlet
Transport includedBike includedTimed entry
From $128 per person
Map of the Palace of Versailles Estate
Versailles is not a building with a garden. It is an estate of about 800 hectares with a building at one end, and almost every planning mistake people make here is a distance they did not expect. This page is those distances.
The estate is 800 hectares, and the map is the plan
Address
Château de Versailles, Place d'Armes, 78000 Versailles, France.
Hours
Palace 9.00am–6.30pm April to October and to 5.30pm November to March, closed Mondays. Trianon estate from 12.00pm. Gardens and park daily.
Getting here
RER C to Versailles Château – Rive Gauche, ten minutes' walk. Full detail on getting there.
The four ways in
The Cour d'Honneur, Place d'Armes: the main entrance, where the Royal Gate is, and where every guided group meets. Entrance A: inside the courtyard on the right, for individual Passport holders and groups with a timed slot. The garden gates: separate entrances straight into the grounds, used when the gardens are free. The Queen's Gate: the car park entrance, €12 per vehicle, on the north side.
The Palace, and where the tour entrance is
Everything you see on a standard visit is in one wing: the State Apartments, the Hall of Mirrors and the Queen's rooms, on the first floor, entered from the courtyard and exited near the Gallery of Battles. It is a one-way route, so once you are through, going back for a room you missed is not simple. The Palace page lists the rooms in order.
The gardens, and the axis they are built on
Out of the Palace, the whole garden is one straight line running west: terrace, Water Parterre, Latona, the Royal Way, Apollo, then the Grand Canal. Stand at Latona and you can see the entire composition at once. Everything else — the groves, the Orangery — hangs off that line on either side.
The Trianon estate, a kilometre and a half out
North-west of the Palace across the park, and it opens at midday. From there the Petit Trianon is five minutes further and the Queen's Hamlet ten minutes beyond that. This is the corner of the estate people run out of time for, and the reason is almost always that they started walking at two o'clock.
Walking distances in one table
Gravel and grass paths throughout the park, flat, with very little shade.
| From | To | On foot | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rive Gauche station | Place d'Armes | about 10 min | level, then cobbles |
| Chantiers or Rive Droite | Place d'Armes | 17–18 min | through the town |
| Palace | Latona Fountain | 5 min | down the terrace steps |
| Latona | Apollo Basin | about 10 min | along the Royal Way |
| Apollo Basin | far end of the Grand Canal | about 25 min | flat, no shade |
| Palace | Grand Trianon | about 30 min | little train or bike available |
| Grand Trianon | Petit Trianon | 5 min | — |
| Petit Trianon | Queen's Hamlet | 10 min | — |
| Queen's Hamlet | Palace | about 40 min | the longest leg of the day |
The little train, the buggies and the bikes
Three ways to cut those distances, all ticketed separately from admission. The little train loops the Palace, the Trianons and the Grand Canal. Electric buggies are hired by the hour. Bikes are hired near the Canal, and the bike departures listed here bring their own. Any of the three turns a two-hour walk into twenty minutes.
What you can carry across it
Large bags and suitcases do not come in, and the lockers at the Palace take nothing bigger than 46 × 43 × 26 cm. That matters more here than at most attractions, because the estate is a day's walking and you cannot go back to a hotel for a jumper. Take a day pack, water and something for rain, and leave the case in Paris.
Where the food, the water and the lavatories are
Concentrated near the Palace and near the Grand Canal, and thin everywhere between. That is worth planning for. Use the facilities before the guided section starts, fill a bottle before you set off down the Royal Way, and do not count on finding anything between the Apollo Basin and the Trianon estate.
Cover the ground without the walk
The bike days reach the Trianon estate and the Hamlet comfortably, and the private departures park close to the entrance.
The gardens page walks the axis in order and the Trianon page starts with the opening time that governs the afternoon. A Palace of Versailles half day tour covers the estate in one day. Every departure is on Palace of Versailles Tours.
Ways to cover the estate without walking all of it
Versailles Full Day Bike Tour with Palace, Gardens, & Picnic
Bike includedGardens includedMax 20
From $128 per person
Versailles Palace Private Tailored Guided Tour With Hotel Pickup
Private groupHotel pickup
From $584 per person