The Hall of Mirrors
Seventy-three metres of mirrors and chandeliers where the Treaty of Versailles was signed — the moment you came for.
ToucanWings — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Claude-Louis Châtelet — Public domain · Basile Morin — CC BY-SA 4.0
A full day: two hours for the palace, four-plus for gardens and Trianon. Tuesdays and Sundays are busiest; Wednesday-Thursday best. In winter the cold shortens the gardens — half a day suffices.
For a complete first visit: the all-inclusive Passport. For the Hall of Mirrors only: the palace ticket. Fountain-free gardens are free — a full budget day is possible with no ticket at all.
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Forty minutes from Paris stands the most sumptuous palace ever raised: Versailles, seat of France's kings from Louis XIV to the Revolution — seven hundred rooms, a Hall of Mirrors more famous than any palace on earth, and eight hundred hectares of gardens with musical fountains. It is a full day, no debate: the palace in the morning (Hall of Mirrors, royal apartments), then the gardens, then Marie-Antoinette's estate and the two Trianons that hurried visitors miss — and which many find lovelier than the palace itself. The decisive rule: book a timed-entry ticket days ahead and arrive at opening — Versailles is France's most visited monument after the Eiffel Tower, and its midday queues are legendary. The RER C runs from central Paris straight to Versailles Château station.
Seventy-three metres of mirrors and chandeliers where the Treaty of Versailles was signed — the moment you came for.
Her make-believe rustic hamlet and the Petit Trianon — the intimate side missed by palace-only visitors.
Le Nôtre's geometry to the horizon: row a boat on the canal or rent a bike for the distances — the gardens alone justify the trip.