Versailles

We’re on the train back into downtown Paris after spending the day at  Versailles. This place was HUGE. Eduardo did a little reading on it last night and apparently it has over 2500 rooms. The original property was 7800 hectares but today it’s significantly smaller at 800 hectares.

We got a bit of a late start in getting there this morning. Got on the correct train line, unfortunately it was the wrong direction. Luckily we realized this after 20 minutes, got off at the next stop, and crossed the tracks to the right train.

After arriving, we crossed the street and decided to look into tickets at a tour operator. There was no line and they were the same price. And lucky that I found this place. The ticket agent let me in on a little secret. The line up to get through the gates to view the palace was going to be over one hour, so he said we should go visit the gardens first and the smaller properties, then go to the palace.

So, after a 5 minute walk, we reached the gates. And boy, was the ticket agent right. The line snaked all through the courtyard. Eduardo has a video of it I’ll share after this. We walked right past that nightmare and headed into the free gardens. We’d read that due to the gardens being so huge, you can rent a bike or golf cart to get around. We decided on the golf cart! We spent the next 1.25 hours zipping around the area, stopping where and when we wanted. It was a little frustrating at times because many of the garden areas we chose to walk into were closed. Not sure sure why but we didn’t dwell on it. Time was ticking on our rental.

By the time our golf cart journey was done, it was time for lunch. We ate on some stairs overlooking part of the garden. After lunch we decided to check on the line as it had been almost 3 hours since we arrived. There was no line!! We walked straight in to begin viewing the palace.

First impressions were that the rooms were massive. The ceilings are so tall! Hard to believe people used to live in this place. They only have 3 wings open as the museum but you get a really good idea how opulent this place is.

After the main palace tour, we caught a mini train to a couple more areas of the property. The line for the train was long and ticket sales seemed very inefficient.  In the end, I’d likely recommend that you skip this portion of the visit as it felt like more of the same type of rooms, only a smaller scale. Interesting fact is that portions of these smaller properties are now used as guest suites for the French Presidents’ visiting guests.

Again we were very fortunate with the weather. The forecast was rain for most of the day but it only rained on the train ride to Versailles. The rest of the day, the clouds burned off and let the sunshine in.