We spent the last day of our trip at the Palace of Versailles. The estate is huge - it covers over 800 hectares - and a visit is really a whole day affair. Not only is there the Palace of Versailles, but also the Palaces of Trianon, the Queen’s Hamlet, and the gardens. A visit here is covered by the Paris Museum Pass and I had to make a timed reservation. I booked the first time slot of the day and I also booked an additional tour of the King’s Private Apartments (an additional 10€ - totally worth it!).

The Palace of Versailles has a long history dating back to the seventeenth century and humble origins as a hunting lodge. Louis XIII built a small hunting lodge in 1623 and decided to rebuild it in 1631. This construction laid the basis of the Palace we see today. His son Louis XIV, also known as the Sun King, continued to expand Versailles and the execution of his vision resulted in the famous palace with which he is inextricably linked. The Palace transformed from a hunting lodge to the main residence of the French Court and government in 1682.

When Louis XIV died in 1715, the court abandoned Versailles and it entered a period of neglect. Although Louis XV didn’t exclusively live at Versailles, he returned in 1722 and under his watch the palace underwent major work. Louis XV died in 1774 and his son Louis XVI became king, not knowing the royal era of Versailles would end with him and the French Revolution. His marriage to Archduchess of Austria Marie-Antoinette a few years earlier was one of the greatest events to take place in Versailles. Louis XVI spent most of his time at Versailles, until October 5, 1789 when crowds of Parisian workers marched on Versailles and forced him and his family to return to Paris. Louis XVI was eventually beheaded by guillotine at Place de la Concorde on January 21, 1793 and his wife Marie-Antoniette was beheaded nine months later on October 16th.

I would have thought the Palace of Versailles would have been ransacked by an angry mob during the Revolution, but we learned it emerged relatively unscathed. However much of the furniture and furnishings were sold off: 17,182 lots in all. Since the beginning of the 20th century, curators of Versailles have worked to reacquire the original pieces that were sold off. We learned from our guide that only a few times were curators duped by fake pieces and most of the pieces were bought back and restored to their original place.

After the Revolution, Versailles has gone through several iterations of museums and uses under different rulers and leaders, such as hosting official visits from foreign dignitaries or events such as the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Work on Versailles has never stopped, whether restoration or modernization improvements to sustain the visitation it receives today. Versailles welcomes nearly 15 million visitors a year - wow! I can believe it as it was crowded in the main part of the palace when we went through. The official state rooms are impressive in their opulence and details, but we preferred the more intimate experience of the tour of the King’s Private Apartments.

The King’s Private Apartments are a suite of rooms that were created by Louis XIV for more personal use. Each successive king expanded or adapted the rooms to their own purposes. The rooms provided more privacy and a space to entertain at a more informal level. “Apartments” is probably a misnomer as this suite of rooms is still substantial (in its final iteration it has seventeen rooms) and displayed many of the same fine details and examples of expert workmanship as the rest of the palace, just on a smaller scale. We enjoyed this tour as it was nice to be with a smaller group without the crowds and the tour guide had a lot of good information about the rooms themselves as well as general history of Versailles, its occupants, and French history. The tour ended with the Holy Chapel and then we set out to see the rest of the palace.

We self-toured the palace and while it was impressive, there were some rooms that were so crowded we didn’t linger for long. You could easily spend the good part of the day just at the palace as there is a lot to see and take in (especially if you do a tour or an audioguide). But there is still a lot more to see on the grounds and we decided to head to the Estate of Trianon to be there close to when it opened (the Palace opens at 9 a.m.; the Trianon estate opens at noon). There are several ways to get around the estate - walking, buying a ticket for the “little train”, or renting bicycles or a golf cart. We decided to ride the train and there was no wait for us to get on and ride to Grand Trianon.

The Estate of Trianon occupies the former site of the village of Trianon and was purchased by Louis XIV in 1661. The Grand Trianon was built in 1687 and eventually the estate was expanded by the building of the Petit Trianon (1761-1768) and the Queen’s Hamlet (1783-1786). Apparently the King’s Private Apartments weren’t enough as the royal families escaped to Trianon for a respite from the rigors of court life (and in the case of Louis XIV to pursue his affair with Madame de Montespan). The palaces of Trianon were used for privacy and relaxation and also to entertain with dinners and parties.

Architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart referred to Grand Trianon as “A little palace of pink marble and porphyry, with marvellous gardens”. Its most distinctive feature is the peristyle of pink Languedoc marble that connects the two wings of the palace and opens onto the gardens and courtyard. Although this isn’t technically a peristyle (it is really a colonnade), the name has stuck. The palace is heavily influenced by Italian architecture and is a single story surrounded by renowned gardens. The original furnishings were lost during the Revolution and it now mostly appears as it would have during the First Empire period. Napoleon fully refurnished Grand Trianon and spent some time there with the Empress Marie-Louise. In 1963 General de Gaulle decided to restore the palace and converted the North Wing into a presidential residence. The palace was used to receive foreign guests on the behalf of France and some notable guests included Queen Elizabeth II, Jimmy Carter, and Boris Yeltsin.

When we were finished self-touring the Grand Trianon we made the short walk to the Petit Trianon. The Petit Trianon was built in the style of the neoclassical movement; the “Greek style” that was in vogue at that time in Europe. The palace is laid out in a simple cube shape and the architect, Ange-Jacques Gabriel, varied the look of each façade to avoid the design from looking too simple. The Petit Trianon is most closely associated with Marie-Antoinette, who made it her private retreat and completely transformed the gardens and had a quaint hamlet of cottages built in the rustic style (The Queen’s Hamlet). After the French Revolution, the Petit Trianon went through changes - the furnishings were sold, it was a hostel for a time, was restored by Napoleon, served as a residence for the Duke of Orleans under Louise-Philippe, and was converted into a museum dedicated to the memory of Marie-Antoinette. In the 20th century, work began to restore and refurbish the palace. The final restoration was completed in 2008.

We thought it was interesting that in any other setting, The Petit Trianon on its own would be impressive and while it still has style and grace, it definitely feels like the simpler cousin to the other palaces we saw (the Palace of Versailles does set a pretty high bar, lol). One of its best features is the gardens and grounds, which we walked through to reach The Queen’s Hamlet. When Marie-Antoinette decided to extend the northern part of the Trianon gardens in 1783, she commissioned architect Richard Mique to build the Hamlet. The Queen’s Hamlet is the centerpiece of the Trianon Gardens and consists of ten small buildings set around the Great Lake. While the buildings were built with a rustic appearance inspired by the designs of Hubert Robert and the half-timbered houses of Normandy, they were not rustic inside. The buildings had refined interiors and some were luxuriously swathed in silk. Most of the buildings had their own kitchen gardens and some of the buildings were used for agricultural purposes or housing (i.e. the head gardener). The Hamlet was also used for country parties.

The opulence and details of the palaces are impressive, but we also really enjoyed walking around the Queen’s Hamlet and found it charming. Nearby is the Farm, consisting of several buildings that were recently rebuilt according to the original plans. We were delighted to find sheep and goats here (yes, we are easily distracted by animals!). We eventually made our way back to the Petit Trianon to catch the train to the main palace. We could have extended our visit by further visiting the gardens or main canal, but decided to call it a day. We had a great visit here and were now ready to eat. We walked back into town and stopped at Antoinette Boulangerie for sandwiches and pastries. We had some time before our train to walk around and thought there were some cute streets and good chocolate shops.

We caught a train back to Paris and had some downtime in our hotel to get organized and rest before our last evening. We had originally thought we would do a river cruise this evening and I had made a dinner reservation based on this, but we ended up doing a river cruise a few nights before. I had kept our dinner reservation though and we walked to Les Deux Colombes on Île de la Cité. While the original forecast for the week had a lot of rain, this was only the second time we had to break out our umbrellas. The light reflections on the wet cobblestones on Rue de la Huchette made for a pretty picture. We had a lovely meal at Les Deux Colombes and it felt like a fitting end to our time in Paris. We were sad our wonderful week was coming to an end and we hope to be back some day!