Popular Castle & Palace Tours in Palace of Versailles

It was great to be able to walk right up to the entrance with our group. The line for everybody else probably had more than 400 people in it. Our guide, Philippe, was excellent: knowledgable, humorous, and his stories brought the people to life. The earphone worked perfectly for hearing his commentary. My only (small) complaint was the timing. We were told the tour began at 11:15. We are people who arrive early, in this case, almost an hour before. At 11:15 two groups were forming but not ours. I asked at the desk and was told that 11:15 was the assembling time and 11:30 was when the guide would meet us. I understand that some people are always late, but by the time we walked to the Palace, we were almost 45 minutes past when I thought we would start. Also, the woman leading us to Philippe walked very fast to the Palace and we had people over 80 years old in the group.

The beginning of the tour was very disorganized. The station we all arrived at was closed which meant having to walk in the rain to a different station. I don’t know if they knew about the closure ahead of time or if it was a last minute change. Due to this we almost didn’t make it onto the train and literally had a minute to spare. Once we got off the train, the guide really did his best to talk with everyone and the walk from the train to the palace was much better. Also, skip the line tickets are a must!

Our guide was Anthony, an arts history graduate from the Sorbonne, with excellent English. With 5 yrs experience he guided us around the palace in a small group of 15 which was lovely. We paid for a group less than 20. Much nicer than the bigger groups. He answered every question the group asked of him.

The palace was so packed, even on this rainy October day, that we sometimes could not locate her among so many people in a room or could not see the items she was drawing to our attention. This was not Anne-Sophie's fault, of course, but will likely be a problem for any guide on any tour.

Our tour guide Gabriella was amazing: thoroughly knowledgeable, funny, engaging, and helpful. Even after the tour ended, she stayed and patiently answered our questions about the Gardens and Petit Trianon, which were not covered under her parts of the tour. Highly recommended.