48.80° N · 2.13° E
The palace and its gardens, Trianon and the Hameau, a 17th-century market and a quiet town. A day trip from Paris on the RER C.
What to do
Each plan says how long it takes, who it's for and whether you can book.
Visit · 2–3 h · Passeport from €25 · free up to age 18 and for EU residents under 26 · closed Mondays
Walk · 2 h · free outside fountain days · Grandes Eaux Musicales from April to November, €16 at the ticket desk
Visit · 2 h · Trianon ticket €15 or included in the Passeport · opens at 12:00 · closed Mondays
Itineraries
Days and weekends already planned out, with how to get between each stop and who to book with.
Plan the trip
Each choice narrows the next: the season shapes how best to travel, and how you travel decides where you stay and where you eat.
When to go
From April to October the fountains play with music on Grandes Eaux days and the park is at its best; May, June and September have fewer people than July and August. In winter the gardens are free and the palace queues shorter, although the fountains are covered.
How you travel
Choose how you're travelling and we'll tell you where to stay, how to get around, where to eat and which services you'll need. We only show the ways of travelling that make sense here.
Versailles has no airport: you fly to Paris, to Orly or Charles de Gaulle, which have direct flights from Madrid, Barcelona and many other Spanish cities, and arrive by train. From Orly it is the shortest. You don't need a car: the palace is ten minutes' walk from the station.
Versailles is done better without a car than with one. Three train lines link it with Paris on the standard metro ticket, and everything there is to see is on foot from the stations. The park, which is enormous, is covered by bike or on the little train.
Who you're with
A trip with a toddler is not the same as one with a teenager. Pick yours to see what works and what to bear in mind.
With children, Versailles works if the palace is only part of the day. Under-18s don't pay, but they need their time slot, and two hours of gilded rooms is the limit for almost all of them. What they remember most is the park: the fountains, the Hameau and the bike.
The Hall of Mirrors impresses teenagers for five minutes; what hooks them is movement. Plan the day with a bike and with history told as a story: the Revolution began to take shape here and Marie Antoinette left this palace for Paris.
Where to stay
We show you what suits the way you travel.Change how you travel
Why we like it: Four-star hotel with 47 rooms on Rue Sainte-Anne, five minutes' walk from the palace, with a garden terrace and family rooms.
Why we like it: The only hotel within the palace grounds, in a Hardouin-Mansart building of 1681, with 15 rooms, a spa and a table by Alain Ducasse.
Why we like it: Two-star family hotel with 30 rooms in the Saint-Louis district, ten minutes from the palace and the Potager du Roi, with rooms for up to four.
Services for this trip
Where to eat
From set lunch menus to Michelin stars. We mark the price level and what to order at each place.
What to order: the starter, main and dessert menu at €40 with the braised veal cheek
What to order: gratinéed onion soup or duck confit with orange; children have a menu
What to order: the single menu in several courses; let yourself be guided by the cellar's wine pairing
Map
The places to stay and services on the map are the ones for the way you travel. Turn on the layers you want and tap a point to see its details.
Nearby
The closest places, whichever country they are in.
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Tips
At 9:00 the Hall of Mirrors can still be seen without jostling.
In the park you can eat on the grass and the Notre-Dame market is on the way.
Between palace, gardens and Trianon you walk more than ten kilometres.
If you go from April to October, choose a Grandes Eaux musicales day.
The palace and Trianon are closed. If that is your only day, spend it in the park, which is open just the same.
By train, no car needed. The RER C leaves the centre, from Saint-Michel Notre-Dame, Musée d'Orsay or Champ de Mars-Tour Eiffel, and ends at Versailles Château Rive Gauche, ten minutes' walk from place d'Armes. It takes about 40 minutes and the ordinary Metro-Train-RER ticket is valid, €2.55 in 2026. There are two other options: the train from Saint-Lazare to Versailles Rive Droite, which leaves you near the market, and the one from Montparnasse to Versailles Chantiers, in the Saint-Louis district.
By car it is about twenty kilometres on the A13, but parking next to the palace is expensive and slow. It only makes sense if you are going to the park and Trianon: through the Grille de la Reine you can drive in by paying €12 per vehicle.
If you fly from Spain, you land at Orly or Charles de Gaulle and arrive by train with the €14 airport ticket. From Orly, metro line 14 and the RER C; from Charles de Gaulle, the RER B and the RER C.
A whole day for the essentials: the palace and the Hall of Mirrors in the morning, lunch in the park and in the afternoon the gardens and the Trianon estate. It is a lot of walking: from the palace to the Grand Canal is almost a kilometre, and Trianon is twenty-five minutes on foot.
With two days, or sleeping a night here, the pace changes. You enter the palace first thing, before the groups arriving from Paris, and have time for the town: the Notre-Dame market, the Saint-Louis district and the equestrian show at the Grande Écurie if it falls at the weekend. Versailles is a city of more than 80,000 inhabitants with a life of its own, not just a palace, and in the evening, when the coaches leave, you notice it.
The Passeport, from €25 in low season, is the only one that guarantees entry to the palace and adds Trianon and the gardens, also on fountain days. The Trianon ticket alone costs €15. Under-18s and European Union residents under 26 enter the palace and Trianon free, but everyone has to book a time slot online. Only buying online guarantees entry within the half hour after your slot: at the ticket office, on busy days, there may be no room left.
The gardens are free almost all year. On the Grandes Eaux musicales days, from April to October, the fountains play with music and you pay: €16 at the ticket office, €13 for residents of the European Economic Area.
Never on a Monday: the palace and Trianon are closed; only the park and gardens open. Tuesday, for that very reason, is one of the busiest days. Best is a Wednesday or Thursday, first thing. In low season the palace opens from 9:00 to 17:30 and the last admission is at 16:45, too late to see it all. If you can only get an afternoon slot, start with Trianon, which opens at 12:00, and leave the palace for later.
Between April and October, check the Grandes Eaux calendar: seeing the fountains with music makes paying for the gardens worth it. In winter the park is empty and the queues are short.
Inside the park, La Flottille, on the shore of the Grand Canal, opens every day and has a children's menu. In the town, Le Bœuf à la Mode, next to the market, serves without closing at midday, and La Table du 11, with a Michelin star, is the special dinner two minutes from the palace. For a picnic, buy at the market and eat on the park grass.
To sleep, the Hôtel Le Versailles is five minutes from the gate; the Royal Hôtel, in the Saint-Louis district, is the cheapest and admits dogs; and Le Grand Contrôle is the only hotel within the grounds, with a visit to the palace after closing.
The park has more than eight hundred hectares and the bike is the best way to see it. You can hire one at the Petite Venise, next to the Grand Canal (every day from 10:00, except from mid-November to mid-February), or sign up for the guided e-bike tour by Fat Tire Tours, which includes the market, a picnic, Trianon and the palace with a timed entry. On the Grand Canal rowing boats are hired, except from mid-November to late February.
Questions
On the RER C to Versailles Château Rive Gauche, about 40 minutes with the ordinary €2.55 ticket. There are also trains from Saint-Lazare and from Montparnasse.
Yes. The time slot is compulsory for everyone, including those who enter free.
Mondays, and also 25 December, 1 January and 1 May.
Yes, except on Grandes Eaux musicales and Jardins musicaux days, from April to October.
If you want to see the palace without crowds and the town unhurriedly, yes: you enter first thing, before the groups from Paris.
In the streets of the town, on a lead. For the park and the palace, check the rules on the estate's website first. The Royal Hôtel admits animals.
Geocaliahttps://www.geocalia.com/en/france/ile-de-france/versailles
