To get a sense of tourist hell in France in summer, go inside the Palace of Versailles sometime between 11am and 4pm. While your guidebook uses words like splendor, luxury, opulence, etiquette, and your guide invites you to imagine nobles playing billiards, the queen playing cards, and the arrival of the Turkish ambassador before King Louis XIV in the Hall of Mirrors, your mind shouts “AIR, I NEED AIR!”
But there is an alternate approach to visiting Versailles on weekdays in high season, an alternate that offers a sense of the splendor and well-being à la Versaillaise while giving plenty of elbow room… and air.
This alternate approach is especially worthwhile for four categories of summer visitors:
– return travelers who have already been to the palace but missed the town and the gardens last time,
– those living in Paris who are accompanying their friends to Versailles,
– first-time visitors willing to forego the succession of overcrowded palace rooms.
– visitors who want a sense of the grandness of Versailles without spending a cent.
Even with lots of shops are closed in August, the two central quarters of the town—the Saint-Louis Quarter and the Notre-Dame Quarter—make for an enjoyable walk-about, with the requisite café and pastry stops, window shopping, and food market gawking, visits to the churches that gave the name to the respective quarters, and eyes open for architectural details. Take note of the numerous restaurants and outdoor seating in case you decide to stay in town for dinner. You might begin your explorations of the town by picking up a map at the tourist office at 2 bis avenue de Paris, easily found between the RER (suburban train) station and the palace.
Sometime after 5:45pm, when tickets for the gardens are no longer sold and the ticket-takers have shuttered their windows, freely enter the gardens from any entrance and enjoy a stroll through Louis XIV’s backyard. The gates of some of the fountain areas will be closed, but the main vistas and the side paths are increasingly left to you in the early evening. You’ll be entering as those who earlier suffered through palace hell are heading out. And you’ll quickly discover that the grand view of the palace of Versailles isn’t from the front but from the back.
The gardens then stay open until 8:30pm from April 1 to October 31. (This alternate approach to Versailles isn’t valid Nov. 1-March 31, when the gardens close at 6pm.)
If in no rush to return to Paris after leaving the gardens, you can stay in that alternate Versailles frame of mind by having an easy-going dinner in town.
Note: If, as a part of this alternate Versailles approach, you nevertheless wish to visit the central rooms of the interior of the palace with minimal crowds, arrive in the town of Versailles in the early afternoon, have lunch, then arrive at the palace between 4 and 5pm, when the ticket line is relatively short to non-existent. You’ll then have an hour’s visit inside before going out to the gardens.
The palace is open until 6:30pm April 1-Oct. 31 and until 5:30pm Nov.1-March 31 and is closed Monday year-round. For further details see the official site of the Palace of Versailles.
For France Revisited articles about Versailles see:
Versailles, Versigh, Versails, Versighs, Versize, Versace: How I Learned to Forget the Crowds and Appreciate Versailles
Part I: Marie-Antoinette’s Versailles Featuring Lolly Winston
Part II: Louis XIV’s Versailles. Purgatory and Heaven, War and Peace, Mirrors and Fountains
Part III: The American Versailles. Not Impressed Yet? Try This!