Versailles Tours

Tours & Tickets to Explore the Palace of Versailles

Walk in the footsteps of kings and courtiers, ensconced in the majesty of the world’s most famous palace. Stroll among its grand gardens and discover the secret world of Marie-Antoinette. Half and full-day tours available with transportation.

Half Day Guided Tour of Versailles Palace & Gardens

Join a private guide for a 3 hour guided visit to the Chateau of Versailles, the most prestigious and famous royal palace in Europe.
From
702
3h
1-10  people
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Outside of Marie-Anoinette's estate

Guided tour of the Private Domain of Marie Antoinette at Versailles

Uncover the secret life of Marie-Antoinette led by an expert local guide. Spend the afternoon hidden away from the crowds at her delightful Petit Trianon and the fairytale Queen’s hamlet.
From
49.90
2h
30m
1-20  people
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Taking a tour inside of Versailles
Popular

Versailles Palace Full-Day Tour with Marie Antoinette’s Estate Afternoon

Immerse yourself in the home of kings and courtiers, including the glittering Hall of Mirrors, the grandiose gardens, the sublime fountain and discover the secret world of Marie-Antoinette.
From
142.80
8h
30m
1-20  people
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Walking into the gardens at Versailles

Versailles Palace and Gardens Skip-the-Line Guided Tour

Skip the long lines and discover the dazzling splendor of the greatest royal palace in Europe.
From
89.90
4h
1-20  people
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Your Ticket to a Royal Experience

The Palace of Versailles is a singular representation of the grandeur of 17th-century French art and architecture. Originally a hunting lodge for Louis XIII, this magnificent estate was transformed by his son, Louis XIV, into the court and center of government in 1682.
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Versailles Tour Highlights

  • The Hall of Mirrors, with its dazzling chandeliers and ornate decorations, showcases the pinnacle of French Style. 
  • The Grand Apartments provide insight into the intricacies and intrigues of daily life at Versailles for the French court.  
  • The sprawling gardens, designed by André Le Nôtre, are a masterpiece of landscape architecture, featuring meticulously maintained lawns, grand fountains, and sculpted hedges. 
  • The private estates of Marie Antoinette, including the Petit Trianon and her charming hamlet, reveal a more personal side of the queen’s life, far from the grandeur of the main palace.

The Benefits of a Versailles Guided Tour with Memories France

  • Our expert local guides bring the history of Versailles to life, sharing fascinating stories and insights that you won’t find in guidebooks. 
  • With our skip-the-line tickets, you’ll avoid the long queues and maximize your time exploring this magnificent site. 
  • Whether you opt for a half-day tour or a full-day adventure, we offer tailored experiences to suit your interests, including the option to add a luxurious three-course lunch at the elegant restaurant Ore by Chef Alain Ducasse.
  • For those seeking a more personalized experience, our private tours provide the ultimate in flexibility and attention. Available in both half-day and full-day options, these tours allow you to explore Versailles at your own pace, focusing on the areas that interest you most.

Versailles Tours for Every Visitor

Touring the Palace of Versailles with Memories France is a journey through time, offering guests a unique opportunity to walk in the footsteps of French royalty. With our knowledgeable guides, exclusive access, and personalized service, you’ll experience the splendor and history of Versailles in a way you can’t do on your own. Book your tour today and let Memories France create an unforgettable experience for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Touring the Palace of Versailles with Memories France is a journey through time, offering guests a unique opportunity to walk in the footsteps of French royalty. With our knowledgeable guides, exclusive access, and personalized service, you’ll experience the splendor and history of Versailles in a way you can’t do on your own. Book your tour today and let Memories France create an unforgettable experience for you.
Touring the Palace of Versailles with Memories France is a journey through time, offering guests a unique opportunity to walk in the footsteps of French royalty. With our knowledgeable guides, exclusive access, and personalized service, you’ll experience the splendor and history of Versailles in a way you can’t do on your own. Book your tour today and let Memories France create an unforgettable experience for you.
Touring the Palace of Versailles with Memories France is a journey through time, offering guests a unique opportunity to walk in the footsteps of French royalty. With our knowledgeable guides, exclusive access, and personalized service, you’ll experience the splendor and history of Versailles in a way you can’t do on your own. Book your tour today and let Memories France create an unforgettable experience for you.
Touring the Palace of Versailles with Memories France is a journey through time, offering guests a unique opportunity to walk in the footsteps of French royalty. With our knowledgeable guides, exclusive access, and personalized service, you’ll experience the splendor and history of Versailles in a way you can’t do on your own. Book your tour today and let Memories France create an unforgettable experience for you.
Touring the Palace of Versailles with Memories France is a journey through time, offering guests a unique opportunity to walk in the footsteps of French royalty. With our knowledgeable guides, exclusive access, and personalized service, you’ll experience the splendor and history of Versailles in a way you can’t do on your own. Book your tour today and let Memories France create an unforgettable experience for you.

What We Recommend Doing During Your Versailles Visit

The Night Fountain show

On Saturday evenings between June and October the Palace of Versailles comes alive at night as we can imagine it would have done under Louis XIV, when lavish balls and parties were held in the magnificent gardens. Baroque music is played across the gardens, the fountains are switched on and the gardens and exterior of the palace are illuminated. The evening ends with a firework display.

 

Seeing Versailles lit up in all its splendour on a warm summer’s night is really something special. Make sure you buy your tickets in advance.

 

Les Grandes Eaux Nocturnes Versailles official website (English)

 

Take the RER C from central Paris to Versailles Rive Gauche Chateau

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The King’s Vegetable Garden, Le Potager du Roi

The King’s vegetable garden, or ‘Potager du Roi’ was built in Versailles in 1683 at the request of Louis XIV, and the food grown here was used to feed the king and court. The King would enter by the golden gate leading into the park of the palace, and would bring friends to see the fruit trees, which he was particularly proud of. Approximately 450 varieties of fruit and 400 varieties of vegetables are cultivated here, including many ancient and rare varieties. 

 

It’s a short walk from the Chateau, passing via rue de Satory you will also find many restaurants and cafés.

 

Le Potager du Roi, 10 rue du Marechal Joffre, 78000 Versailles. RER C to Versailles Rive Gauche Château

April – October: Tuesday – Sunday 10:00 – 18:00 / November – March: Tuesday and Thursday 10:00 – 18:00

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The Royal Stables

Just opposite the chateau, built by Jules Hardouin-Mansart in 1682 and reputed to be the most beautiful in the world, the royal stables used to house the school for the royal page boys, a high honour reserved for sons of the military nobility. Here they would learn how to be perfect gentlemen – horse riding, fencing, dance, music and drawing, as well as military skills.

 

The stables also housed and trained the king’s 600 horses. Completely restored and remodeled, today they are home to the world famous Academy of Equestrian Arts, founded in 2003 by Bartabas. 

 

They put on shows every Saturday and Sunday, check details and reserve here

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The Carriage Museum

The carriage museum is housed in the Royal Stables at Versailles. Just opposite the palace, it allows us a glimpse into another, often overlooked aspect of life at the royal courts, how the royal court got about in a time before cars. It’s home to magnificent carriages, golden sedan chairs, beautiful harnesses for the horses and even sleighs used by the ladies to ride around the gardens in winter.  

 

Les Grandes Ecuries, avenue Rockefeller, 78000 Versailles

 

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The Marché Notre Dame

The Marché Notre Dame in Versailles was created more than 300 years ago by Louis XIV. Nowadays it is a wonderful place to shop for food, with covered market halls dating back to the 19th century that are open every day except Mondays, and a large and lively outdoor food market in the centre of the quadrangle of halls on Friday and Sunday mornings. The food is fresh, seasonal and often comes from local producers. It’s a great way to experience the atmosphere of a small town French provincial market, just a stone’s throw away from Paris.

 

We recommend you buy a picnic at the market and take it into the nearby park of the Palace of Versailles. There are also plenty of fantastic cafés and bistros around the market where you can enjoy a delicious lunch before or after a visit to the palace.

 

Marche Notre Dame, 78000 Versailles. Covered market open Tuesday – Saturday 07:00 – 19:30 and Sunday 07:00 – 14:00. Open air food market Tuesday, Friday and Saturday 07:00 – 14:00

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DID YOU KNOW?

Versailles Fun Facts From One of Our Guides

Siobhan
Partner & Product Manager
One wit called Versailles a noble theme park since it would keep the aristocrats occupied and out of way while the king ruled. How could a palace do that?
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  • 2,300 rooms had to house about 7,000 titled courtiers plus workers to keep up with their lifestyle
  • Duchess So-and-So and Marquis What’s-His-Name were crammed into postage stamp-sized apartments. Even the great Madame de Pompadour had to climb 100 steps to hers.
  • Those courtiers spent all their time scrambling for favor, for better digs, or precedence that would decide even what quality candle you could use.
  • The nobles were reduced to drinking and chasing lovers under the King’s eye while his armies were off conquering Alsace and Lorraine. They no longer had the political pull, maybe even the will, to interfere.
The theme park quip isn’t too far off: beside part of the grounds Louis XIV commanded,“I want childhood everywhere!” And he was richly obeyed:
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  • Zoological gardens held animals from far-off places, like elephants and rhinoceroses, as though the Sun King radiated his sovereignty even into foreign lands. 
  • A whole flotilla of Venetian gondolas offered the nobles rides on the Grand Canal. 
  • The happy few enjoyed dinner parties held in the sculpted copses of the gardens. 
  • Theatrical troupes would regularly come to entertain.
  • When the snow fell, the nobles in all their fine array indulged in sled races down the Allée Royale. 
  • Later, when Marie-Antoinettte had her play dairy built with and populated with perfumed sheep the old king’s wish could not have been more aptly fulfilled.
The gardens were created by André Le Nôtre and also reflected the King’s majesty.
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  • They were meant to “obey,” not the planet of the sun, but only the ever-rising Sun King himself, around which they were meant to revolve throughout the seasons. 
  • This is one of the reasons French gardens seem so rigorous and exact. Like the ballet the king favored, it was thought that in disciplining our natural penchants, beauty can blossom. 
  • Secretly, the gardeners changed out the flowers every night so that Louis XIV might never gaze upon a wilted bloom. 
  • The garden was not some willy-nilly playground for unruly greenery, but a statement of the King’s absolute authority even over Mother Nature.
There was a whole way of life at Versailles.
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  • Inhabitants called their palace “in this country,” as though it were a land apart. 
  • Gowns had to be changed three and four times a day.
  • They did not simply walk, they slid – mostly so as not to step on a woman’s train. An essential part of a courtier’s education, the Versailles glide was even taught to Marie-Antoinette before she came to France. 
  • Nor did one knock on doors, as the vulgar might, one scratched with one fingernail kept long precisely for this purpose.
Inhabitants of Versailles enjoyed masked balls and other entertainments.
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  • They were a fantastic opportunity for all to escape the strict, stiff atmosphere.
  • One time, Louis XV and his closest friends disguised themselves as the gardens’ yew trees, and strolled in their greenery down the Hall of Mirrors. 
  • The whole show looked as though Le Nôtre’s topiary were invited in from the cold.
  • A costume like that allowed the king to flirt discreetly with the woman who would become Madame de Pompadour. 
  • History does not say whether she was fooled.
Marie-Antoinette loved to get away for from the kind of rules of rank that granted chairs to some titles, stools for those lower down, and for those less privileged still, a mere cushion. But she bucked tradition at everyone’s peril:
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  • The young Queen preferred to escape into amateur theatrics at the Petit Trianon getaway.
  • In 1785 she even played the maid in the Mariage of Figaro.
  • That was the piece that her royal husband said would bring down the Bastille.
  • Four years later, in 1789, exactly that happened when the people stormed the fortress.
  • On that day, Louis XVI noted in his journal, “Nothing.”

Reviews

Some say we have the best tours of Versailles.
"Our tour guide was excellent. She kept it very interesting and it had a great flow. It is a gorgeous place and well worth the short trip. One of our best tours."
Tara S
"An excellent experience. Really enjoyed not having to worry about tickets, trains etc. We just turned up and Oliver guided us to Versailles."
Gillian F
Our guide, Sarah, was incredible. She was easy to understand, very informative, funny, and inclusive. Versailles was breathtaking and the gardens indescribable.
Michell

Experience the Majesty with Our Palace of Versailles Tour

We fell madly in love with the palace’s glitter and glory many years ago. Ever since, each time we return, that love deepens: How could the splendid Hall of Mirrors not captivate? How could the sheer number of thousands of rooms not dazzle ? Yet each chamber possesses its individual and intricate detail that set it apart from all the others. These are the secrets that our guides can share, letting you in on the enchantment Versailles has cast over visitors for centuries.

 

With a Memories guide, you too will soon be fascinated, as they conjure forth bygone eras with their in-depth knowledge, bringing a time now lost to life in a way that will linger long after your return back to reality. Each tour is designed as a bespoke experience that will carry you on a journey into a period of splendor and elegance, an immersion into the Versailles world and the courtiers and Kings who called it home.

 

Such an extraordinary monument calls for more than a mere guide but a true storyteller, and that is exactly what Memories offers. Our expert understanding of the palace’s history, art and architecture will keep you enthralled for the time you spend in with us and with the past figures who once lived there. We make a point of turning a guided tour into an experience as intimate as it is enriching, in which our guests enjoy special access and personalized attention. You deserve to feel your own connection with the old Versailles magic and it is a point of pride with us that in our care, you will.

 

When you join us on a tour of Versailles, you become part of our story. When the spark of wonder brightens our guests’ eyes as they explore this magnificent palace and its gardens, as it inevitably does, then we know we’ve done the job we set out to do.

 

When you choose us as the ones who will show you an unforgettable Versailles, to share our love for it with you, we accept with the deepest gratitude. We thank you for that trust and cannot wait to welcome you to this astonishing place, helping you fashion your own unique memories there.

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