Current Time in Versailles, France

Versailles is a city in the Yvelines department of the Île-de-France region, situated approximately 20 kilometers southwest of central Paris. Though a city of over 85,000 residents with its own distinct urban character and administration, Versailles is known throughout the world primarily for its extraordinary Palace of Versailles and gardens, the supreme achievement of French absolutist architecture and garden design and one of the most visited and celebrated royal residences on Earth. The Palace of Versailles and its park were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

With a population of approximately 87,000, Versailles is a comfortable French city with its own cathedral, museums, markets, and university, yet its entire identity is shaped by the monumental royal complex that defines it in the global imagination. The palace attracts over eight million visitors annually, making it by far the most visited château in France and one of the most visited historic sites in the world. The city itself developed organically around the palace during the reign of Louis XIV, when the court and government were relocated to Versailles, and its urban fabric of broad avenues radiating from the palace gates reflects this unique royal urban planning.

The history of Versailles as a royal seat begins with Louis XIII, who built a modest hunting lodge here in 1623. His son Louis XIV, the Sun King, transformed this modest retreat into the most magnificent palace in the world as part of his vision of absolute royal power and cultural supremacy. Construction proceeded from the 1660s through the 1680s under the architects Louis Le Vau and Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the landscape architect André Le Nôtre, and the painter-decorator Charles Le Brun. The result was a palace of astonishing scale — the main façade extending 680 meters — and unprecedented grandeur, housing the entire French court and government until the Revolution of 1789.

The Hall of Mirrors, the most celebrated room in the palace, is a gallery 73 meters long lined with 357 mirrors reflecting the light from 17 arched windows overlooking the gardens, decorated with painted ceilings celebrating the military victories of Louis XIV and furnished with bronze candelabras and chandeliers. The Grande Galerie was the stage for the most magnificent court ceremonies of the Ancien Régime, and it was here in 1871 that the German Empire was proclaimed by Bismarck in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, and in 1919 that the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I was signed.

The gardens of Versailles, designed by André Le Nôtre as a vast geometric park covering approximately 800 hectares, represent the supreme expression of French formal garden design, with perfectly manicured parterres, fountains, grand perspectives, and the Grand Canal extending 1.65 kilometers from the palace. The Grandes Eaux, the spectacular fountain shows held on weekends during the summer season, bring the garden to life in the manner intended by Louis XIV. The Grand Trianon and Petit Trianon, smaller palaces within the park built as retreats for successive royal mistresses, and the Hameau de la Reine, the picturesque rustic village built for Marie Antoinette, provide additional layers of royal history within the vast estate.

The city center of Versailles itself, with its covered market, restaurants, and the Quartier Saint-Louis and Quartier Notre-Dame residential districts planned in the 18th century as residential quarters for the court and its attendants, offers a pleasant and authentic complement to the overwhelming royal complex. The Cathedral of Saint-Louis of Versailles and the Notre-Dame church are dignified 18th-century buildings that serve the city's community.

Versailles is connected to Paris by the RER C suburban train in approximately thirty-five minutes and by several other train lines from Paris. The combination of the world's most magnificent royal palace, extraordinary formal gardens, profound historical significance from the construction of absolutism to the end of the monarchy and the making of modern Europe, make Versailles an absolutely essential destination for any visitor to France.