Each year, the Château de Versailles is visited by millions of people! There’s a lot to see in this vast 400-year-old residence. Designed by André le Nôtre for King Louis XIV, the Château de Versailles is a nugget to be discovered at least once in your life. Here are 5 things you need to know about this formidable historic site, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
1 – You can enter free of charge (under certain conditions)
Are you under 26? Well, you can visit the Château free of charge. The Château’s permanent collections, as well as temporary exhibitions and the Domaine de Trianon, are accessible to you without paying a penny! And for those under 18, access to the Château is free, whatever their nationality. Nice, isn’t it?
For those who don’t fit into this Zone, the Domaine is open free of charge every first Sunday of the month. Now you know what you have to do!
2 – The estate’s Grand Parc is free all year round
You may not have known it, but the grounds of the Château de Versailles are accessible free of charge, any day of the year! Yes, you read that right. So you can go there to f family cycling area picnic or even take a ride on the mini train in the alleys of the park.
3 – The Château was the first zoo in modern times
Surprising but true, the Château de Versailles once housed an impressive royal menagerie. For the first time, exotic animals were placed in separate enclosures… And you’d run into just about anything! Ostriches, pelicans and even rhinoceroses. This one-of-a-kind menagerie model later inspired zoos we know today.
4 – After 10 years of restoration,the Château reopens Marie-Antoinette’s private apartments
This secret room of the Château required 10 years of restoration work before being reopened to the public in June 2023. The apartments were restored as closely as possible to how they might have looked 250 years earlier. A nugget worth discovering.
5 – The Château’s gardens gave off such strong odours that they made visitors sick
Yes, although the gardens of the Château de Versailles were magnificent, they gave off a smell so strong it made 17th-century visitors sick. Hyacinths, narcissi, jasmine… flowers with heady perfumes that helped cover up the smell of the latrines…