Step Inside VERSAILLES: Royal Secrets of the GREATEST PALACE Ever Built 👑 (Paris Day Trip)

The Palace of Versailles is one of the most spectacular places to visit in France and is a popular day trip from Paris. In this ultimate Versailles travel guide we’ll take you on a full tour of the palace, including to the Grand Trianon, the Petit Trianon, around the gardens, and to the calm and peaceful ‘Hameau de la Reine’ (Queen’s Hamlet).

Versailles began life as a small hunting lodge around 12 miles away from Paris. At this time, the road into the tiny hamlet and dilapidated hunting lodge was often used by farmers to move their cattle. All of this changed during the reign of Louis XIV (The Sun King) when he embarked on a bold project (the first of its kind) whereby the king would live together with his court.

Today you can visit the Palace, grounds, and surrounding buildings and see what life would have been like for Royals during the 17th-century.

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[Music] welcome to Versailles today we’re going to be exploring one of the most beautiful palaces in France which was made famous by Louis the 14th the Sun King to be honest you really need a full day in order to see everything that Versailles has to offer so I wouldn’t really plan a half day trip here when you come to Versailles there are five distinctive things to see there’s the main palace there are the gardens there’s the Grand Trion there’s the Pittronon and there’s the Amu Delaren which is the Queen’s Hamlet in this video we’re going to show you all five things [Music] like many royal residences in France Versail actually began life as a somewhat humble hunting lodge having been established by Louis the 13th who was Louis the 14th’s father yes it becomes a bit confusing because they’re all called Louis anyway Louis the 14th never really got to know his father very well because he inherited the throne upon the death of his father at just 4 years old his early ascension to the throne meant that his reign ended up being 72 years long which is the longest of any European monarch ever louis the 14th had fond memories of his childhood at Versailles and so in 1682 he made the bold choice to move his court from Paris to Versailles thus beginning a period of transformation where the rustic abode was transformed into the opulent palace that is so famed today this golden age of Versailles however did not last as long as you might think because in 1789 during the French Revolution Louis V 16th together with Marian Twinette were forced to leave aside for Paris thus ending the palace’s time as a royal [Music] residence if you want to get the best value for money then you’ll want to book the passport ticket this includes all of the different buildings although the gardens themselves are normally free to the public the passport ticket is either €24 or €36 depending on when you come whether it’s high season or low season we’re currently technically in the low season which was only €24 but it does mean that there are a few negatives to visiting at this time firstly the gardens are definitely not at their best the trees don’t have any leaves on them the fountains are wrapped up and the other thing is that the side of the chatau isn’t very aesthetic at the moment there’s lots of scaffolding as there are renovation works going on so yeah the best time to visit is probably late spring early summer even though the gardens might not be at their peak right now the best thing about visiting at this time is that firstly the price is obviously lower and the other thing is that we can see more details of the palace than normal because we can get closer to the things because there are just fewer crowds i’ve been to Versailles before in the summer and honestly it was a bit manic so today is definitely a more pleasant experience if you’re not really into crowded places if you’re coming to Versail then one thing is sure you’ll definitely end up walking a lot especially inside the palaces and I think we’re going to end up walking over 20,000 steps today if you want to get around the grounds in style you can actually rent a golf buggy however it is a bit pricey at €42 per hour and €10.50 per 15 minutes after that so the buggy is definitely a good choice if you’re traveling for example with children a more affordable option is to take the little tourist train which costs €5 per journey per person there are also little bikes you can rent next station terminus of this train [Music] it’s a beautiful day here at Versailles and we’re going to go and visit the palace now we have timed entrance tickets for 9:00 a.m which is the first slot you can get but I don’t know how much of a queue there’ll be i haven’t been to the palace in 5 years and Antoine hasn’t been in like 20 so let’s go and check it out we’ve arrived at 9:04 so let’s see how long the queue takes to get in it doesn’t seem like it’s going to take very long it’s 9:13 now and we’re already in so I would say that’s pretty good going considering the queue looked quite long it’s actually not too long of a wait the Royal Chapel is one of the most impressive feats of engineering within Versailles which is saying something in such a grandiose palace inspired by Gothic architecture the chapel was dedicated to St louis who was the patron saint of Louis the 14th and was also an ancestor of the royal house [Music] we’re currently visiting the stateateroom section of the palace now the one thing to note is that Louis the 14th’s life was quite ritualistic and so he had to do the same kinds of things in front of quarters each day in order to retain his power and that’s what happened in these rooms [Music] one thing I think it’s worth noting is that if you come on a rainy day don’t be too disappointed about the weather because you’ll actually get to see the interiors much much better it’s such a sunny day today that it’s actually hard to make out the details of the paintings inside louis the 14th’s full name was actually Louis Jon i.e louis Goddgiven he inherited from his mother the idea that it was his god-given right to rule and he was actually his parents’ first surviving child after 23 years of [Music] marriage before the sumptuous renovation works the first nobles to stay at first actually called the palace a mistress without merit well things obviously changed entirely during the reign of Louis the 14th because when you’re wandering through the kingstate apartments now there is grandeur and opulence around every single [Music] turn after you’ve made your way through the seven stateaterooms which bear the name of a Roman deity you’ll come to the Hall of Mirrors this is the most ornate illustrious beautiful place in the entirety of the palace and it’s just we have to go look at it the hall of Miris is 73 m in length and it was actually originally designed by Louis Lavo to replace a terrace which had been on site which once connected the king’s apartments to the queen’s apartments now today is just so extravagant and it was originally built to kind of show how powerful the monarchy of France was at the time visitors to this room would never have seen a room so stunning in all their lives and so they would have been wowed just as we have [Music] been when you first get to the Hall of Mirrors don’t be shocked by the number of tourists everyone stops at the beginning of the hall to take their photos but what you should do is walk all the way down to the other end because this area is way less crowded as you can probably see we’ve got a lot of space around us compared to it at the front the king’s apartment served as the living quarters of Louis the 14th and the rooms here are nestled within the oldest part of the palace you see when Louis the 14th decided to carry out renovation works on Versailles he actually kept the original hunting lodge at its very core and so this is enveloped by the later additions the queen’s apartment consists of several rooms and the most sumptuous of them all is the queen’s bed chamber which was designed for Queen Mary TZ of Austria [Music] the coronation room started out as a chapel then a guard’s room and was eventually dedicated to Napoleon Bonapart in 1833 the gallery of battles was built to replicate one that’s similar in the Louv and was constructed to glorify French military history we’ve been in here for almost 2 hours now and I think we’ve seen most of the palace but to be honest we didn’t even have that much time to spend in each room because it’s so fast i’m a bit tired already although there are quite a lot of food options on site the food is quite pricey and is also not great quality so I would definitely take sandwiches if I were to visit first again anytime [Music] soon in 1661 Louis the 14th decided that he would need a monumental garden to match his illustrious palace he entrusted the task to Andre Lenort who was widely considered to be the father of the French landscaped garden the work ended up taking over 40 years because of the amount of work that needs to be carried out canals were dug terraces were made soil was moved and legions of men were used in order to create what you see today and that’s not all in fact because of the nature of the trees the shrubs the plants which were planted it actually meant that the garden has to be renewed every 100 years or so and so even today a whole army of gardeners maintain the beautiful palace gardens just as they would have looked several hundred years ago [Music] this is the Apollo fountain and it was constructed between 1668 and 1671 in the Goblan factory in Paris it was actually brought here to Versailles before being gilded the following year it was always meant to be in this location which is a central perspective which is when you look out of the hall of mirrors you can see this amazing central avenue which is crowned by several fountains and this was always meant to be the centerpiece it was designed by [Music] Lebron when you are exploring Versailles you’ll find these continuous elements of Apollo and that’s because Louis the 14th wanted to style himself as Apollo the sun god who was also the god of peace of reason of the arts and Louis the 14th did this he put these symbols all over his palace over his kingdom because he wanted people to see him as a patron of the arts as someone who brought warmth to France as someone who just had the divine right from God and there should be no intervention from anyone else because Louis the 14th literally saw himself as an Apollo of France which is a bit crazy because it’s so exposed to the elements obviously the fountain has to be restored every few decades or so and we’re really lucky at the moment because it was restored for the last time last year it was open to the public once more in August of 2024 so it’s really shiny and now that we’re at the back of the fountain you get really an idea of the perspective of how the garden is meant to look with the shadow at the back the Grand Canal behind us and then this beautiful fountain as a central [Music] gem one of the coolest things about the garden is all of the different activities on offer for example here on the Grand Canal you can actually rent a rowboat starting from €16 per half hour you can have maximum four people in the boat and you actually pay at the end so you pay for what you consume like what for how long you spend on the water you just leave an ID card and then pay at the end maybe we’ll have time later if you think that the palace of our site is busy today then you can get somewhat of an idea of what it would have been like during the reign of Louis the 14th so now we’re going to see the place where Louis would have retreated away from the nobles from the cortisans and from the peasants essentially in the 17th century Louis the 14th decided that he no longer wanted to move from court to court palace to palace and he would actually force all of his noblemen to come here to Versailles where they would also end up being subjugated to horrible living conditions at times there could be up to 10,000 cortisans living in the buildings surrounding Versailles and so the conditions got really really putrid it was said that people would often relieve themselves in the most unexpected of places using latrines in the throne room in the royal chapel things like that and it’s even alleged that one time Mary Antonette was hit with some falling human waste when she was walking through an interior courtyard thus it was completely horrible so Louis the 14th did what any self-respecting king would do he built himself his own palace a little getaway from Versailles still within the grounds and called it the Grand Triionol this also allowed him to undergo an uninterrupted affair with his mistress the Grand Triionon is sometimes known as the marble trion thanks to this beautiful pink marble that makes up most of the structure it’s also based on Italian designs and the gardens here are a bit more formal than anywhere else in the Versailles grounds in the 18th century it was somewhat abandoned and it was revived and brought back to life when Napoleon I chose to live here with his wife by the reign of Napoleon III it had been turned into a museum of sorts and it had become a bit more eclectic today there’s a lot of furniture there’s fewer paintings than in the main palace but there’s a lot more furniture to [Music] see gosh this has been such a long day and we haven’t even seen everything we’ve stopped to get a coffee luckily there are places to get food drink snacks all over the domain of course you could bring your own snacks but it’s quite convenient to be able to get a coffee for a pickme up whenever you want it’s now just a short walk to reach our final destination of the day which is the pity trial and the Queen’s Hamlet upon Louis the 14th’s death his son Louis Vcance he initially started out by moving into the Grand Triion but he soon decided that actually his tastes were a bit different to that of his father’s and so he commissioned the pity trian to be built in the neocclassical style later on in 1774 Louis V 16th actually gifted this domain to his wife Mary and Twinette she would come here with her close friends her children her close family members basically and she would really enjoy quiet time away from the pomp and circumstance of the court it was here that she could really be herself and she even rellandscape the gardens in the Anglo Shinoir style the idea behind these palaces was to be a little bit rustic and to really exude an air of calm and serenity in comparison to the hustle and bustle of the main palace this is Leit Trian and you can really get a sense of how quiet it is the king would have come here he would have eaten fresh farm grown vegetables and just really enjoyed calm and peace of all the different kinds of gardens that you can see at Versailles this is probably my favorite because there’s a grotto there’s several amazing sculptured buildings within the grounds of the garden and it also leads onto to one of the quietest quaintest places of them all the Queen’s Hamlet it’s always funny to me that people would build these really really structured beautifully laidout gardens and then they would add a grotto that’s more reminiscent of a cave and the natural world in the 18th century [Music] in 1783 Queen Mary Antonette commissioned her favorite architect to build her a little farm where she could come and play dress up and spend time with her closest friends there was a budois a tower in the form of a lighthouse a windmill a barn that was actually burnt down during the French Revolution and a variety of other houses they all worked as a working farm to provide eggs vegetable things like that for the queen but there were stories of the fact that when Queen Maranet did come down here she would have all of the animals washed before she played with them and touched them [Music] today there’s still a small farm at the hamlet and you can meet animals of all shapes and sizes just be sure not to touch them or feed them as they have people caring for them [Music] thank you for watching and don’t forget to like and subscribe because if you enjoyed this video about Versailles you’ll probably enjoy this video about Paris