Versailles by Motorhome

Zagan the motorhome is like one of those arty photos where one person is static and in focus while everyone else is blurred in movement. He’s been at Camping de Paris for nearly a week now, while his neighbours have come and gone. On Monday we extended our stay for a few days so we could visit the Palace of Versailles, because it’s closed on Mondays!

Researching the motorhome options for Versailles, we found the sister campsite to the one we are on, which is also in the ASCI scheme, so would be the same price. However, reading up it said that the campsite was five minutes ‘by car’ away from the Chateau – which could mean a decent walk. There is also a parking place right at the Chateau (see Park4Night.com) for a couple of euro an hour, but we decided to stay put at Camping de Paris as we were getting to know the area now, have a huge park next to us for running in and have a few other places we want to see in the city.

As you would expect, Paris has a great public transport system, and Versailles itself has three train stations. Versailles-Rive Gauche station is around 700m from the Chateau and is served by the RER trains (line C5) which would mean us getting the shuttle bus from the campsite to the metro station at Porte Mailliot, but the shuttle bus doesn’t start until 8.30am. Wanting to beat the crowds by arriving early, we opted to catch the train from Suresnes-Mont Valerien train station, which is just over 1.5km (a mile) from the campsite. The trains from Suresnes gave us two options. Line L would cost €1.95 each (one way) to Versailles-Rive Droite station (1.2km from the Chateau) or Line U for €2.10 each (one way) to Versailles-Chantiers station (1.3km from the Chateau). 

We set off around 7.30am, so it was still dark as we left the campsite and walked across Pont de Suresnes over the River Seine. As we stood waiting for the train the sun was rising behind the Eiffel Tower. The iconic shape was silhouetted against a deep red sky, matching the brake lights of the cars siting in the rush hour traffic around us. To us it all looked magical, to the commuters on the platform it went unnoticed like wallpaper – and it was at this point that we realised we’d forgotten our camera!

The train to Versailles-Chantiers was the next one due, so we bought a ticket for that. It was bang on time and only took 20 minutes to reach Versailles. We tried to look as bored and tired at the sleepy commuters around us, but sadly failed – how could we look bored, we were on a double-decker train with Paris silhouetted in the windows! At the other end, walking through the streets of Versailles, I realised this is no normal town. Restaurant menus were in many languages, I even spotted one in English that said ‘French Food – Hot Drinks’.

We booked our tickets online the previous day, as we’d heard tales of queues for tickets and security before you even get to the Chateau entrance. Our ‘Passport’ ticket cost us €27 and gave us entry to the Chateau (€18 if bought on its own), the Estate of Trianon (€12), the Gardens (normally free but it was a ‘Musical Gardens’ day when we visited so you have to pay €8.50) and the Coach Gallery (free).

We arrived at the chateau around 8.20am and joined the short queue outside entrance A. By the time it opened at 9am the queue was much, much longer!

After getting our bags checked and picking up our audioguides we spent over two hours roaming the Chateau. If you read this blog regularly you’ll know that we don’t have much stamina in museums and palaces. In case you are planning to go yourselves and want to know about timings, we took two hours and still missed several sections – we were Chateaued out!

 This place is immense. To give you some idea, it has 700 rooms, 67 staircases, 2153 windows, 6300 paintings and thousands of sculptures and decorative objects. Of course it’s not all open to the public, but after a few hours it feels like it is.

Aside from the wall-sized paintings (and they were big walls, we wondered if TVs would ever get that big), and beautiful rooms we also found ourselves people watching a lot of the time. In the Chateau it was mainly the Japanese tourists who pose for photographs in a totally different way to us. While you’ll find us stood in front of the camera grinning at it with something epic behind us, the Japanese look as if they are modelling for a magazine, posed with a book or arms outstretched. I loved watching them and suspect their holiday albums are way more exciting to look at than ours.

We got a sneaky peak into how the Royals lived before the revolution, a nose around some bedrooms and saw where the King used to eat at a small table watched by an audience – none of it sounded like fun.

Once we had reached our Chateau limit, we headed into the gardens, found a sunny spot on some steps and sat down for an illegal picnic. There are many rules for the gardens – keep off the grass, don’t touch the statues and no picnicking except for designated areas. But we were discrete (no picnic blanket) and it was lunchtime, so no one said anything. Re-fulled, it was time to hit the gardens.

If you thought the Chateau was big, the gardens are vast, with over 77 hectares of formal gardens within an 850 hectare park. Needless to say they are best tackled by either hiring a bike, buying a ticket for the mini-train or hiring an electric golf buggy. We chose to walk, as did many others to start with, but as the day went on the queues for the mini-train grew longer than the train itself, as feet swelled and enthusiasm flagged.

The ‘musical gardens’ day meant our meanderings around the gardens were accompanied by a CD of baroque music (which was available to buy at the gift shop – another part of the Chateau that we missed!). It also meant that the groves which aren’t open when entrance to the gardens is free, were unlocked for us. The groves are small enclosed areas hidden in the heart of the wooded parts of the garden. Decorated with fountains and over 155 statues they are accessed by secret pathways and are outdoor drawing rooms where the King and his court would have light meals, listen to music, dance or watch theatre.

Sadly the musical gardens day didn’t mean that the fountains were on – you need ‘musical fountain’ days for that! I suspect it must cost a fortune to keep all 600 water features going, and the team of 13 fountain engineers do deserve the odd day off. Kindly they ran three fountains going to give us a taste of what we were missing.   

We wandered over to the Estate of the Trianon and had a nap in the sunshine on the banks of the grand canal (no keep off the grass signs here). Refreshed we tackled the Grand Trianon a smaller palace, still bigger than most homes, built for the King Louis XIV to escape from day to day life in the Chateau – oh and somewhere for his to meet his mistress. By the time we reached the Petit Trianon, built for King Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour the crowds meant it was tricky to get around.

We retreated back to the open air and took a stroll around the Queen’s Hamlet. Yes that’s right. Not happy with a huge Chateau and two smaller palaces, Marie-Antoinette had a ‘small’ hamlet built with a farm, dairy, a few houses and a tower. 

Finally, we gave in. We’d seen everything our bodies and brains would take in, so we headed back to the main entrance and walked up to the train station. In all we were on our feet for around nine hours, and probably walked around 12 miles. Lets just say we slept very, very well last night.

 

Ju x

Our Top Tips for visiting Versailles

• Book your ticket in advance online. 
• There’s no need to print your tickets if you have a smart phone. The staff just need to scan the bar code on the ticket, and can do it from a phone screen.
• Consider buying timed tickets if you know what time you’ll arrive. Those with a 9am timed ticket queued to the left of the main queue, and were let in ahead of us.
• Only buy the passport ticket if you are going to see everything as it may be cheaper to buy individual tickets.
• Wear comfortable shoes – you’ll be on your feet a lot.
• If you’re touring the gardens, sunscreen comes in handy on summer days. 
• Arrive early and be prepared to queue.
• If you aren’t visiting the Estate of Trianon (they open at lunchtime) – see the gardens first, then the Chateau in the afternoon as there isn’t much of a queue.
• Bring snacks and drinks if you want, but there are restaurants and kiosks around the Chateau and gardens and the prices weren’t too high (€3 for an artisan ice cream, €8 for croque monsieur with salad).
• We skipped the history of the Chateau and the King and his court and went straight to the State apartments before they got too busy (although remember to double back and see them – we forgot!).
• Bring some headphones for the audio guides otherwise you have to hold them to your ear.
• Download the Versailles app and Gardens app before you go – then you’ll have extra audio guides for the Estate of Trianon and Gardens.
• Don’t forget your camera!