"I can see why they chopped off their... " a Versailles Travel Page by Dabs

It's hard to believe visiting Versailles today that it started out as a mere hunting lodge in a country village for Louis XIII in 1623. Louis XIV, the Sun King, was responsible for turning it into the opulent palace you see today but it would be a Louis further down the royal line that would pay the price for the Sun King's extravagance, Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette. When 6,000 women from Paris marched on Versailles on October 5, 1789 after rumors spread that they were hoarding grain during a bread shortage, they reluctantly left Versailles to relocate to the Tulieries in Paris during the French Revolution. They never saw it again, in 1793 they lost their heads to Madame Guillotine.

For the modern day visitor to Versailles, you do not need to present an invitation from the King but any traveler who has done their homework will come armed with either a forfait de loisirs or a Paris Museum Pass or they will feel like one of the many who visited the palace seeking an audience with the King and sit there waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting...

We picked an extremely hot day to visit Versailles, I'd estimate that temperatures were approaching 90F and there is no breeze to offset the sticky heat at Versailles. Getting there couldn't have been easier, we walked to the Invalides RER station in Paris, purchased our Forfait Loisirs combined train and admission ticket, boarded a train about about 40 minutes later we were at the Versailles Rive Gauche train station. After a short detour to find a grocery store to buy a picnic lunch, we walked to the palace which is only a short distance from the Rive Gauche station.

The approach to Versailles is less than picturesque, the town has built up around it not unlike many palaces that you will find in Europe. It's a little hard to imagine what it might have been like in the days of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette when Versailles was considered quite a distance outside Paris and there were no cars or telephone poles to mar the view.

Once you get within the Palace gates, there are signs instructing you which way to go, entrance A for those people who neglected to buy tickets before they left Paris, entrance B for groups with reservations for non guided visits and entrance C for those people wise enough to either have a Paris Museum Pass or a Forfait Loisirs to bypass the loooooong queue or groups or individuals on guided tours. Pass through the security line and you are in the courtyard of the Palace ready to start your visit