I've been to Versailles twice in my life, and honestly, it's a place you only need to visit once…read more It's worth checking off, though, that first time, and I was happy to go back on our family trip this month, as my brothers and kids had never been before.
I booked tickets online about a month in advance, and it was easy to do--not always a given, as I found when booking the Eiffel Tower and London Eye this same trip. Tickets were €35 each for eight adults and €15 for my six-year-old, with my younger son and niece getting in for free.
We set aside a whole day for our excursion from Paris, and we definitely needed it. We were there for over five hours and covered what felt like very little ground. It was kind of a grueling day for everyone, most of all my older son, who got nauseous in the cab ride over and immediately threw up on the sidewalk leading up to the castle. We were lucky enough to miss the heat wave, but it was still brutally hot, and the grounds were so massive and sprawling that no one had the will to really explore them.
We did spend a couple hours at the actual castle, though, the infamous, guillotine-worthy Château de Versailles. (My grumpy sick son had some questions about what happened to the people who lived there, and I entertained him with a little history lesson. My husband later reported that another mom was listening in and judging me for my frank description of the French Revolution.) I remembered it from my first visit almost twenty years ago and had the same general reaction, which is that the opulence was impressive and repetitive. You get the idea pretty quickly, and understand immediately why heads had to roll. The private chapel kind of said it all on its own.
We didn't go to every room, but we saw plenty and made sure to hit the Hall of Mirrors with its gaudy profusion of chandeliers and gold sculpture. There were a few spaces that incorporated modern artwork, which was pretty cool.
When everyone was tired and hungry, we found our way to an Angelina cart and a back room with tables and fans where we were able to sit and eat. There are a number of restaurants on the grounds where you can make reservations, but this worked better for us (and also nothing was available for our huge party by the time I got around to looking).
We spent a couple more hours wandering around the garden, but we didn't get particularly far. The garden was beautiful but enormous and short on shade, and it seemed impossible to cross the distance to get to whatever points of interest might be waiting a quarter mile in the sun-scorched distance. The fountains were cool and we did get to see them turn on briefly, though we missed whatever musical fountain show we were supposed to catch. We could not figure out where or when it was happening.
We wasted half an hour waiting in line for golf carts before giving up and buying tickets for the train instead, to take us to the Trianon side. It was so hot, all we did was take the train and then start leaving. The train was surprisingly shitty, just a rickety train-shaped conveyance that went around the grounds, making stops at a few noteworthy places.
We hopped off at Petit Trianon and walked out, taking a long, pleasant path lined with trees. It was cooler and less crowded on this side of Versailles, and if I were ever to come back, I would spend my time checking out the areas away from the palace. I remember enjoying the Queen's Hamlet on my first visit, and I noticed a lot of family's on bicycles enjoying all the charmingly landscaped open spaces.
Versailles is well worth a visit at some point in your life, though I'd recommend against going in summer with small, irritable children. I don't need to see the palace again, but I wouldn't mind another go at the grounds.
