Our Versailles Gardens Tour

Private tour with skip the Line & Hotel Pick-up/Drop-off

From the Hall of Mirrors, visitors can admire a great overview of the Gardens of Versailles for which the King of Sun, Louis XIV, had an unconditional love. During his whole reign, the King made from the Gardens of Versailles Palace a unique and magnificent place. Shows, luxury celebrations, receptions of guests and other royal entertainments kept occurring.

During this tour we will relive the glorious moments that the Queens, Kings & nobles spent in these lavish grounds. As Louis did in the past, our guide will lead you & your family as a VIP through the alleys and itsТ bosquets, fountains, orangerie, statues… Let’s discover with us the great beauty of Versailles gardens.

Versailles gardens

OpeningТ Days
4/7 (Sat,Sun,Tues,Fri)

versailles

Meeting-Point
Your hotel or apartment

versailles

Duration
4Hrs (half day)

versailles

Access
Skip the Line

Transport
Executive car

Type of tour
Private, up to 17 people

Because your family worth it, choose the best. Choose a 5 stars Versailles tour.

Because we know that –for your safety & confort– driving a car and telling an interesting story during a guided tour requires different specific skills, we propose you to be guided by a specific licensed guide and driven by a specific Chauffeur. That way, your guide will be really dedicated to you. Like a friend, your Versailles expert guide will have more time to share with you and more interesting anecdotes & stories to tell you. This tour of Versailles is private.

What is included in this tour

We escort you (round trip) from your hotel to the Palace.
Relax in our executive car with Chauffeur.
Enjoy a private tour with a friendly Versailles expert really dedicated to you. (the guide does not drive)
Feel like a Queen: skip-the-line tickets.
Admission to Musical Fountains Show or Musical Gardens included when running.
Headsets (if necessary) so you can always hear your guide.

What to see during this tour

Visit the Orangerie with its 2000 orange trees.
View down the Royal Drive.
See the Latona Basin.
Discover Apollo Basin and the Grand canal.
Follow your guide and enjoy our selection of the best bosquets.

The Sun King wrote a book named “The Way to present the Garden of Versailles”. In this book, he described a path to follow in order to visit everything in the most convenient and less tiring way. It is this route that your Guide will take during your private visit of the Garden of Versailles.

The meeting and trip to Versailles

To begin with, your tour guide and his/her driver will pick you up at your hotel for your very special journey to the marvelous Chateau de Versailles. During the trip to Versailles, your guide will introduce himself and he will propose you a short presentation of the half day that you will spend in her/him hands. Once arrived in the town of Versailles, your driver will take a side entry unknown by the general public to enter in the parc of the Palace of Versailles directly by car. This way, you will avoid the crowd of the main door. Your driver will park is car near the grand canal directly in front of the gardens! You will quickly enjoy a breathtaking view on the park with the magnificent Palace in the background.

It is also the perfect location to discover the massive dimensions of the Garden. As a French garden, it was built according to a very rigorous and geometric architectural plan. From that view, visitors are transported into another world and can imagine an endless and beautiful garden.

Your visit starts here with your guide at the Water Parterres inside the Garden of Versailles which is the ideal place to admire the great façade of the Palace. The visit will carry on with the South Parterre where you will see Sphinx and colorful flowers.

versailles gardens apollon

The gardens by itself

As you can imagine, it is difficult to see the 80 hectares of the gardens in a day… The gardens of Versailles may appear as a true labyrinth. Even after visiting Versailles several times, a French from Paris can still easily miss some interesting parts (even sometimes the best parts) of the gardens.

That is why our expert tour guide will enable you to see the best part of the Gardens: its groves, its 400 sculptures inspired from the Greco-Roman mythology, its vases and its statues which make it one of the greatest gardens throughout the world.

As there is an incredible large number of objects which attract eyes, you may feel lost and you may easily miss out the key elements of this place. To avoid such a situation, we offer you to follow our expert eyes in order to fully discover this amazing Garden & its history.

You will discover some of the 210 000 flowers and 200 000 trees which gives Versailles his so special atmosphere. We will make you discovered the best of this huge garden including trees pruned, ponds, statues and tidy walkways which make this garden the best of France.

Our well trained guide will make you imagine the feeling you could have encountered 400 years ago in this magical parc.

colonnade

dragon

Fountain

More details about your gardens tour

Depending of the day, some groves & fountains may be open/close. Our job is to be able to adapt our visit to offer you the best of the gardens, thanks to our knowledge. We propose you one typical way:

You will follow green paths inside the labyrinth, that the garden represents, to discover the most beautiful groves and fountains:

You will see the grove where Louis XIV got his title the King of Sun: the Ballroom.
Another grove, which is a true jewel of the Garden of Versailles, is the Colonnade. This grove will bring you back to Antiquity.
You will also admire the magnificent Enceladus Fountain whose subject is taken from the myth of the fall of the Titans.
In the second part of the visit, you will see The Grove of Apollos Baths which displays the bath of Apollo and his Sun Horses served by the Nymphs.
You will then visit the Dragon Fountain by going through The Grove of the Three Fountains and the Children Path (which featured several sculptures of children).
Once you arrive at the Dragon Fountain, you will be able to see the major Neptune Fountain.
Afterwards, you will make your way back to the Palace by going through the North Parterre where we will talk about statues, vases and fountains…

At the end of the visit, your Guide and his driver will take you back to Paris to the location of your choice.

Gardens of Versailles

The 3 Fontains at Versailles

Encelade

Apollon’s Bath

The orangerie

The next step of your visit is the Orangerie. The Sun King was warm enough to be able to grow orange trees in our chilly countryside! You will very shortly arrive above the Orangerie where 2000 orange, lemon and pomegranate trees grew up at the time of the King. Now there are still hundreds trees standing in front of the Swiss Ornamental Lake, an amazing surface of water which used to be a smelly lake next to the Palace. During this visit your tour guide will tell you the story of this place & you learn where the 2000 trees were kept during winter! Enjoy the view and listen to your guide…

Versailles gardens

At the end of the visit, your tour guide and his driver will take you back to Paris at the location of your choice.

Price list

Number of people	Total Price all included
2 people	380 € / pers
3 people	290 € / pers
4 people	240 € / pers
5 people	200 € / pers
6 people	195 € / pers
More than 6 people	Start the booking process to get the price or contact us

Please note:

The Palace sells a limited number of tickets with direct access to professional travel agencies ONLY. During the high season these tickets are often fully booked. We advise you to book at least 6 weeks in advance. If this is not possible, we recommend you to book an afternoon half-day tour when the Palace is less busy.

If you book less than 6 weeks in advance, for your own convenience, please provide us (if possible) with alternative dates & times at the check-out.

Important information:

** We do not take responsibility for storing your luggage during the tour. If you require assistance with this please let us know in advance and we can arrange it at an extra cost.
** Children count for one participant.
** Visitors with disabilities can not access everywhere in Versailles. Please contact us before booking and we will customize your tour of Versailles.
** The Musical Fountain Show is opened All Saturdays and Sundays, from 31 March to 28 October 2018 and all Tuesdays from 22 May to 26 June 2018.
** The Music Show is opened on Tuesdays, from 27 March to 24 April, 15 May, and from 3 July to 3 October 2018 as well as on Fridays, from 6 April to 26 October 2018.

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The gardens by Lenôtre… Learn a bit French culture…

The gardens located north west of the castle are amazing for their size and style. Theses gardens were designed with a landscaped wonderland dotted with dozen statues, fountains, pounds, and trees cut like an umbrella! This is really THE most amazing garden in France and maybe in all Europe.

This stunning place was designed by one of the most famous landscaper that France have known: André Lenôtre. The list of gardens designed by Lenôtre is long…And you may sometimes walk in Paris in a lovely garden or park that was built by this man. (think about the Tuilerie gardens, the Luxembourg gardens, Vaux le Vicomte gardens, Saint Cloud gardens…). So Let’s breath the fresh air of Versailles & follow your guide to enjoy a nice stroll through its quaint gardens.Т

Gardens of Versailles & Musical Fountains Shows

Every summer, the Château de Versailles offers great entertainments inside the Garden of Versailles to give visitors the experience of how magnificent celebrations were inside the Garden at the time of Louis XIV.

Your tour guide will offer you the visit during the Musical Gardens (on Tuesdays from June to October) and the Musical Fountains Show (on Saturdays and Sundays from April to October).

This guided tour gives you the opportunity to discover the Garden of Versailles with music from the greatest musicians and compositors from the 17th century including Lully and Charpentier. Imagine yourself at the time of the King and explore the fountains and groves with their water features spouting to the rhythm of music ! Contact us to get a quote for this extra.

Gardens of Versailles & the Fountains Night Show

From June to September on Saturdays evening (9 to 11pm), you will be able to discover a world of colorfully illuminated groves and playing fountains.
Your guide will also offer you the exclusive visit of the Garden during the Fountains Night Show. It will enable you to fully enjoy and discover the place. After the Fountains Night Show of Saturday evening, your visit will finish under fireworks and classical music of great compositors as Vivaldi and Haendel. Contact us to get a quote for this extra.

Helpful Hints

As the Palace & its gardens are huge, we suggest you to wear some sneakers and comfortable clothes. Moreover, a bottle of water and some sunscreen will be welcome during the visit of the Gardens on Summer. On Winter, we advise you to wear some warm clothes for a best experience.

This tour runs on Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday & Friday from April to October. To fully enjoy your Versailles experience, the best day to visit the Palace is on Saturday & Sunday: all the fountains are functional during the Fountains Shows.

Safety ‘s Note

Next to the reinforcement of the security to enter in the Palace, the control may take longer than usual. Our skip the line tickets enable us to avoid the long queue. However you may have to wait a bit for the checking , especially during the high season.

Any questions? Contact us