“BEFORE COVID” I took this photo in 2013.

The least painful option was also the most expensive: take a private car instead of the train get a private tour of the rooms generally closed to the public dine in the town attend an opera or concert in the evening don’t even think of using the restrooms. Even when you “skip the line” with a guide, it’s almost impossible to avoid the crowds. I even did a few running events in the park.īut usually I was there to do “the whole circuit”, which includes the Palace, the gardens, the Grand Trianon, and Marie Antoinette’s Petit Trianon and Hamlet. Sometimes it was just to visit the gardens for a special event, or to check out the market in the town. As a travel writer and tour guide I probably visited the domain more than a dozen times each year.

I can’t remember exactly when it was, or the exact incident that finally pushed me over the top, but I had vowed I wouldn’t be returning any time soon.

I have to admit it: I gave up on Versailles.

Opera house hotel reddit