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Informations pratique
Acces
Palace of Versailles
78000 Versailles
SNCF
Versailles-Chantiers
(from Paris Montparnasse train station)
Versailles-Rive Droite
(from Paris Saint-Lazare train station)
RER
Versailles-Rive Gauche
(from Paris line C)
Bus no171
Versailles Place d'Armes
(from Pont de Sèvres)
Highway A13
1st exit : Versailles-Château
Car and coach park
(pay car and coach park)
Place d'Armes (Palace), Allée de Bailly (Park), Grand Trianon, Petit Trianon
Services & opening times
3 April - 31 October
- Garden: open daily from 8 am to 8:30 pm
- Groves: open daily from 9 am to 5 pm
1st November - 31 March
- Garden: open daily 8 am to 6 pm
- Groves: closed
- Tickets and information for individual visitors
- Individuals with tickets Access to all tours
- Groups visits with a reservation
- Groups and individuals on lecture-tours, with tickets
- Visitors with a “Paris museum pass”
- Left-luggage, telephones
- Automatic ticket sales machine
- Cloakroom for schoolchildren, book store, souvenirs
- Picnic area, take-away sales
Le Café
+33 (0)1 39 50 58 62
Restaurants
« La Flottille » : +33 (0)1 39 51 41 58
« Petite Venise » : +33 (0)1 39 53 25 69
Tourist train
telephone : +33 (0)1 39 54 22 00
fax : +33 (0)1 39 55 07 25
Electric vehicles
Renseignement : +33 (0)1 39 66 97 66
Free toilette facilities
Palace Princes Courtyard (accessible to the disabled), Palace Entrance A, Grand Trianon, Petite Venise, Flottille, the Dauphin's Grove and the Girandole Grove (accessible to the disabled).
Disabled
- Facilities for the disabled
- Disabled access to all tours
- Parking spots reserved for people with limited mobility who come without a guide
Total access :
Palace (entrance H, wheelchair loan service), Grand Trianon
Partial access :
Park, Estate of Marie-Antoinette and Gardens
Disabled visitors may be dropped off by car or bus near entrance H, in the Main Courtyard of the Palace. Parking in the courtyard however is not permitted.
Near the Palace, at the Place d’Armes car park there are spaces exclusively reserved for the vehicles of disabled visitors.
Visites Virtuelles
Videos in French
Introduction
Versailles Castel
Recognised as "historical monument" and "remarkable gardens"
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The King in His Garden A colossal project which began in 1661. Louis XIV entrusted André Le Nôtre to lay out the gardens of Versailles. The work was undertaken at the same time as that of the palace and lasted approximately forty years. |
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Jean-Baptiste Colbert managed the project and Charles Le Brun provided the drawings for a large number of statues and fountains. Later, Jules Hardouin-Mansart ordered decorations which were more and more sober and extended Louis Le Vau's Orangery. The king himself received all the plans and wanted « details about everything ».
Thousands of men participated in the vast undertaking. Sublimated by numerous representations of Greco-Roman mythology, through the magic of the 50 fountains and 620 waterworks, the extraordinary beauty of the gardens was used to represent the king's power. The king entertained distinguished guests in the gardens and made them the privileged setting of magnificent celebrations and daily strolls with his courtiers.
In the 19th century, the budding Romantic Movement lead to the progressive change of the garden's regular lines to a landscaped arrangement that was further and further away from the principles of the French garden. The damage caused by the great storms of 1990 and 1999 confirmed the need for a major restoration programme. The re-plantation of the Great Perspective, the rearrangement of the Orangery parterre and the restitution of the Encelade, Dauphin, Girandole and France Triumphant groves are the spectacular results of the work begun nearly ten years ago which helped restore the gardens to the original state which they had at the end of the Sun King's reign..
Concerned at the end of his life to show the best « way to show the gardens of Versailles », Louis XIV wrote an itinerary that can still be followed today. Over 400 sculptures, vases and statues, executed by the greatest artists, make these gardens today's largest open-air museum in the world.
