On our recent vacation, a few of us went a few days early and visited Paris.  One of our first stops was The Palace of Versailles.  It was absolutely amazing and enormous, and one of the most fantastic places I’ve ever visited.  The palace was the last home of Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette was originally built as a modest hunting lodge for Louis XIII.  Can you believe it??   It’s hard to believe that it was a hunting lodge when the palace is full of decadent furnishings, a sparkling hall of mirrors, grand fountains, colorful gardens.

In 1624, inspired by fond memories of hunting trips to the area, Louis XIII decided to build a small lodge near the country village of Versailles. The building was immediately ridiculed, so the King ordered his architect to undertake reconstruction. A significantly bigger residence emerged, but it was still far from being regal. The architect continued to make modifications, but the lodge remained largely unchanged until the King’s death in 1643. It wasn’t until Louis XIV was named King, that Versailles was transformed into the luxurious palace we know today.

Versailles is located just 12 miles from the center of France and is visited by over 5 million people every year. Visiting Versailles is pretty easy.  We took an Uber from our hotel for about 30€ which took about 60 minutes.  We purchased our tickets before ever leaving on our trip. Our ticket was great.  We had “Skip the Line” access, which is a must all over Paris. You aren’t able to skip the security line, but it moves really fast.  We did a lot of research and all of the blogs and websites that we read advised us to get there early–that is excellent advise.  The line was obscenely long the later it got in the day.  Our reservation was for 9:30 and it was perfect.  When we left Versailles we decided to take the train back into the city.  We left from the Versailles-Rive Droite station, which was about a 10-minute walk from the Palace and quite lovely.

We bought our tickets at the palace’s official website.  We bought the ticket “Passport with Timed Entry” which gave us priority access within half an hour of the time of our ticket.  We had access to the Palace with audioguide, the gardens, the Estate of Trianon, and the Coach Gallery.  The cost of this ticket was 27€.  We also decided to rent a golf cart for touring the gardens which were 34€, and completely worth it.