Versailles is twelve miles just outside of France’s capital, Paris. This means it is very easy to reach it.

If you are flying to Paris, you may end up at their biggest airport called Charles de Gaulle airport. This one is near the village named Roissy. Just like Charles de Gaulle, the second airport in the capital, Orly has also two terminals. You can go to the city from both of them by taking the train, rent a car or a taxi.

If you go with the taxi or your rented car, you need to take the Motorway A13 heading to Rouen. You can also go by train if you take RER line C5. There is an exist just at Versailles and the crowds will take you to the castle. Or, you just take a SNCF bus. Besides that, there is a bus service from Paris to village Versailles. Take the RATP on line 171.

Trianon Palace Versailles

Trianon Palace is a contemporary glamour place. It has a historic elegance and inside the walls of the Trianon Palace there are many fabulous wonders.

It is just a mile away from Louis XIV’S famous Chateau de Versailles and just 20 minutes from the center of The City of Lights. The gallery has mesmerizing Murano chandeliers and some strikingly beautiful green chairs that are put against the whitewashed background. It is a clear invitation to sit and enjoy the grace and the fabulousness of the place. Other highlights include the Spa Guerlain. There, the modern features and the innovation will reveal you a sense of luxury and sensuality.

The treatments are transformed into personal and unique occasions, moments that are specially created for the visitors. The Guerlain experience represents a perfect union between the science and the aesthetic expertise. The French inspired cuisine is exquisite French with the legendary Chef Gordon Ramsay. Gordon Ramsay has introduces recently a restaurant in France at the Trianon Palace.

A useful tip is to go to the main entrance of Louis XIV’s Château de Versailles. The Great Royal Stables are restored and they house the New Academy of Equestrian Arts, guided by Bartabas, a very famous equestrian.

Pullman Versailles Chateau

This property is near by Palace of Versailles and also close to Parc de St-Cloud. Pullman Versailles Château has a beautiful restaurant, that only serves breakfast. But don’t be worried. There is a 24-hour room service there too. The recreational facilities of the Pullman Versailles Chateau are a sauna facility and also fitness facility.

There are also some meeting facilities like an exhibit place, some conference rooms, a ballroom, and also banquet facilities. The Chateau also has a great lounge-bar, a business center, and also free wireless Internet access. A 24 h front desk is on the property.

The property is smoke-free and has 152 guestrooms located in a 4-stories high property. The guestrooms have LCD televisions where you can pay for movies. The business rooms are also equipped with wireless Internet and desks. The bathrooms have shower or a tub, bathrobes and some hair dryers. There are bottles of water in every room and also a minibar.

Les Etangs de Corot

This Ville d’Avray is a place located on the lake that is near Palace of Versailles and also the Parc de St-Cloud. Les Etangs de Corot has a cute restaurant that only serves lunch but the room service is unlimited. There are some meeting facilities which include a ballroom, conference rooms, banquet facilities, and some small meeting rooms for the small groups.

The location also has free wireless connection, a lounge-bar and a multilingual staff. Also, the front desk is opened in 24 hours. The guestrooms have a satellite television and the business rooms have desks, wireless Internet access, and direct-dial phone. In addition, the guestrooms are equipped with refrigerators. The bathrooms have bathrobes, hair dryers, and also handheld showers. Minibars are in every guestroom and they have complimentary newspapers too.

You can dine at restaurant Le Corot. It has a very creative French type cuisine and the walls have reproductions of Jean-Baptist Camille Corot paintings.

The town Versailles has a lot of great places where you can buy a meal. Most of them have French cuisine but fast foods are also available. In the castle, there is a Cafe near the Cour de la Chapelle.

In the Formal Gardens, you will also see 2 informal restaurants named La Flotille and La Petite Venise. On the grounds, in the Gardens, there are a big number of kiosks that offer snacks and some even fast food. Next to the Grand Trianon there are a lot.

Drink

Versailles is not quite a town to do a party. Still, there are some local places with great drinks where it is easy to get in touch with the locals.

On Place du Marche there are many bars and restaurants. Here is where the young people like to go out at night. There are tables just outside the terraces and at night when it is warm, it is great to sit outside.

You can also try to explore and walk the alleys of Place du Marche. You will be able to find some pubs and bars.

The youth also likes to go to a very popular bar called O’Paris. It is located right on Avenue de Saint-Cloud, near the Château’s Place d’Armes. It is on the right if you sit with your face at the castle. Sometimes there are some sports being played inside.

Phebus is the Versailles’s subsidiary company for transport. It serves the city and the surrounding eleven communities. They have nearly 100 buses that go on 24 routes and they go to basically all the corners within Versailles. This service is used by nearly 50,000 residents and visitors every day. The bus system is connected to the SNCF trains. In this way you can come there form Paris or other regions.

There is also a Phebus Tourism Bus if you go there between the middle of April and end of October. This Tour bus will take you to the interesting quartiers (neighborhoods) like Saint-Louis and Notre-Dame. This is prior to going to Palace Versailles, the main point of attraction.

So, if you are going there, plan ahead your trip. You don’t want to get there on a Monday and find out it is closed. Still, on Mondays you can see the gardens and the park because those are opened all the time but it is no fun if you don’t go inside the castle. Outside the castle, don’t miss the Grandes Eaux Musicales. It is a wonderful display of waterworks. You may not like the loud piped music but the waterworks are fabulous.  You only need a day to visit Versailles. But only by adding a second day you will be able to take it all in and have time to savor the experience.

Arriving in Versailles is easy by train.  Just take a ticket and go to the RER C5-Line and take the train in the Versailles-Rive-Gauche direction. You only have a short minutes walk from the train station to the castle. There are many people going in that direction so you will not get lost. An alternative route to the RER station would be to get the SNCF train for the direction Versailles Chantiers right from Montparnasse. But with RER the distance from the station to the palace is shorter.

In weekends or holidays there is a long queue. You can even stay there for as much as three hours to see the castle and about 45 minutes to see the gardens. If you are with an organized tour, you may jump the queue and save time.

In Saint-Louis the atmosphere is just like in the 1700’s. It has survived the 1789 French Revolution and it is not filled with tourists all the time. Take your time and drink a coffee there in one of the cafes or restaurants. Sneak a peak at the Vieux-Versailles area. You will see some beautiful antiquate administrative buildings. Other interesting monarchical constructions are to be seen like the Ministries of War and Foreign Affairs.

If you want to do some shopping, you had better go to the Notre Dame area. Don’t confuse that with the great cathedral. It is a kind of plaza, a former gathering place for the people in the town, in the seventeenth century. Now it holds the open-air Marche Notre Dame where the tourists and also the residents buy goods and fresh food.

This open-air market is opened on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays mornings. It sells fresh food for all the people in the town. In its perimeter there are dozens of antique shops, boutiques and other markets. From there you can buy China and other goods.

Paris is the fashion mecca, so it is normal that Versailles has the same style. It is a small imperial city. If you take a 10 minutes ride on the bus you will be able to go to a great shopping mall that has the same shops as the big city but with fewer tourists.

The architect that was responsible for all of it is Jules Hardouin-Mansart. He has created many architectural gems that can be found today including the Notre-Dame cathedral. He did some work on the current state of the palace. The construction of Versailles town has not stopped innovating after the Sun King.

Louis XV which was Sun King’s great-grandson, has supervised the construction of the Hotel du Bailliage and also the Hotel de la Geole, located in the Norte-Dame neighborhood. This was a court and a jail.

The construction of the Church of Saint-Louis has been conducted by J. Mansart de Sagonne in all this time. This has shortly become the most dominant house in the neighborhood. Louis XV also asked J. B. Berthier to create the Hotel de la Guerre and also the Hotel des Affaires.

The Versailles after the revolution has received some industrial age architectural buildings. They can be viewed at the Rive Gauche and also the Chantiers station. Nowadays the city is a great mix of new and old style.

The French have always tried to preserve the castle or Le Chateau as they call it and keep it away from the time’s hazard. The castle has undergone a lot of restoration activity in the hundred of rooms, gardens and wings. The Hall of Mirrors could be considered one of the most impressive. It is impressive now and it was impressive then. At that time, mirrors were a thing of luxury. The powerful king Louis XIV wanted only the best in its castle. The amazing golden corridor has many mirrors bouncing back the reflections in every way.

Now, in many of the rooms there are artistic collections and many items of a historical significance.

Just outside there is the wonderful made by the hand of man, Grand Canal. Italian poplars sit by its side and they are extending into the area named Little Venice. Some yachts and gondolas can be seen on the water on special events.

The Trianon are some buildings made by Louis XIV with the purpose of eating outside its palace. Now they are opened for tourists. You can see the: Porcelain Trianon, the Trianon-sous-Bois, and also the Marble Trianon.

There are about 80,000 people living now in Versailles and it is a vibrant city.

During the famous Hundred Years War, the place began to get quite populated and during Louis XIII’s time it flourished as it was mainly used as hunting grounds for the king. In 1670, Louis XIV was deciding that the royal families and all the French aristocracy to Versailles. This is how the village began to develop.

Once the king decided that, there were many buildings to construct. The king also ruled that no building should have more than three stories so that no building is bigger than the castle and that the castle is the central point of it all. The roads were also improved and the lightning system also. All was done to insure that the king has all that he and his family needed. The city began to undergo a tremendous transformation and historical sights such as Saint-Louis Cathedral or the Hotel des Menus Plaisirs appeared.

When the French Revolution happened, the royal family was moved in arrest in Paris and then executed. After that, for a century or so, Versailles was just a spot for the nostalgic nobles. In 1870, during a short war, the executive and the parliament were moved in the area. The World War One had an official ending because the paperwork made after that was named the Treaty of Versailles. In this moment, tourism moves the area and the town develops in a slow but steady pace.