Your private Versailles tour of the Royal Palace & Gardens begins when you meet your expert guide in front of the main entrance. You will start by exploring the vast 87 million square feet of gardens in a comfortable golf cart, which allows you to fully appreciate all of its major attractions. Your guide will make sure you get to see all the garden highlights and if your timing is right, you might catch the seasonal water show at the garden’s central fountains.
Once have explored the gardens, you will pass the long line to enter the palace. Hosting 2,300 rooms in total, the most famous is said to be the 240-foot-long Galerie des Glaces, The Hall of Mirrors. Your guide will take you back in time as they describe what life was like in the 17th century. Here visitors saw themselves in a full-length mirror for the first time. Mirrors were expensive and rare, so to have a room filled with more than three hundred was a way for Louis VX to show his wealth and power. This hall has hosted many important moments in history, including the signing of the Treaty of Versailles after WWI.
Next, it is on to see the 18th-century Royal Chapel, one of five churches on the Versailles estate. An interesting mix of architectural influences, it is best known for its colorful ceiling paintings and its historic organ. From there you will move on to the opulent State Apartment, or offices of the king, where royalty would meet with important members of society and politics daily.
