Versailles Barcelona

The Palace of Versailles is a breathtaking and historic place. Its exterior architecture is majestic and grand, just as one would expect from a symbol of the French monarchy. It receives nearly 11 million visitors a year, so I highly recommend booking a skip-the-line tour with transportation included from Paris (as we did). You avoid hours of waiting and enjoy the visit much more. The interior is a careful reconstruction, as much of it was looted during the French Revolution. The rooms are beautifully restored with period furniture, and walking through its halls is like stepping back in time. However, I was a little disappointed by its actual size. I imagined it would be much larger, especially compared to the Vatican. Even so, it remains a very beautiful and historically rich place. I recommend dedicating at least half a day to it, and ideally a full day (palace + gardens). It's well worth a visit if you're in Paris.

Impressive and a testament to arrogance and pride. Worth seeing.

Guided tour of the museum, SUPER!

I visited this beautiful place with my wife in Nov 2007 and with my parents in 1983

Top of the top

It's always overwhelming. After waiting in line for two hours (Sunday at 11:00 AM), we were able to admire everything surrounded by thousands of people.

Spectacular! It was a pleasure to experience this marvel. It's absolutely worth buying the ticket with the guided tour, enjoying this experience, and having the whole story told, as well as the interesting facts surrounding the palace at that time. Our guide was Verónica (Nica) from Viaterra Tours; her storytelling made the tour very entertaining.

Now I understand Bermúdez, the football commentator, when he said it's Versailles, a majestic place! Imposing, bourgeois, its gardens are beautiful, walking and renting bikes is a luxury to be there!

I suppose if I was new to visiting palaces, châteaux and stately homes then I would be giving this 5 stars, but the truth is I have done them all. Versailles was the last on my bucket list and I thought I was saving the best til last - how wrong I was! 35 million visitors per year is not a measure of excellence, it is a serious problem managing such a stream of people. I was continually told to keep moving, if they had a cattle prod then I would have been jabbed numerous times. The other very real problem is that this palace is more a museum than a living history. There is little furniture and virtually nothing to contextualise the lives of the historically important occupants of this palace. To be honest I should have stayed home and instead re-watched the Netflix series of the same name. It was not even filmed at Versailles but it tells a much better story of the Louis XVI and XV epochs than the actual palace does.

Absolutely breath taken.