Château de Versailles

This splendid and enormous palace was built in the mid-17th century during the reign of Louis XIV – the Roi Soleil (Sun King) – to project the absolute power of the French monarchy, which was then at the height of its glory. Its scale and decor also reflect Louis XIV's taste for profligate luxury and his boundless appetite for self-glorification. Some 30,000 workers and soldiers toiled on the structure, the bills for which all but emptied the kingdom's coffers. The château has undergone relatively few alterations since its construction, though almost all the interior furnishings disappeared during the Revolution and many of the rooms were rebuilt by Louis-Philippe (r 1830–48). The current €400 million restoration program is the most ambitious yet and until it's completed in 2020 at least a part of the palace is likely to be clad in scaffolding when you visit.

Work began in 1661 under the guidance of three supremely talented men: the architect Louis Le Vau (Jules Hardouin-Mansart took over from Le Vau in the mid-1670s); the painter and interior designer Charles Le Brun; and the landscape artist André Le Nôtre, whose workers flattened hills, drained marshes and relocated forests as they laid out the seemingly endless gardens, ponds and fountains.

Le Brun and his hundreds of artisans decorated every moulding, cornice, ceiling and door of the interior with the most luxurious and ostentatious of appointments: frescos, marble, gilt and woodcarvings, many with themes and symbols drawn from Greek and Roman mythology. The King's Suite of the Grands Appartements du Roi et de la Reine (King's and Queen's State Apartments), for example, includes rooms dedicated to Hercules, Venus, Diana, Mars and Mercury. The opulence reaches its peak in the recently restored Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors), a 75m-long ballroom with 17 huge mirrors on one side and, on the other, an equal number of windows looking out over the gardens and the setting sun.

The château complex comprises four main sections: the palais (palace building), a 580m-long structure with multiple wings, grand halls, sumptuous bedchambers and the Grands Appartements du Roi et de la Reine; the vast gardens, canals and pools to the west of the palace; two much smaller palaces, the Grand Trianon and, a few hundred metres to the east, the Petit Trianon; and the Hameau de la Reine (Queen's Hamlet).

The basic palace ticket and more elaborate Passeport both include an English-language audioguide and allow visitors to freely visit the King's and Queen's State Apartments, Royal Chapel, the Appartements du Dauphin et de la Dauphine (Dauphin's and Dauphine's Apartments) and various galleries. The so-called Passeport additionally gets you into the two Trianons and, in high season, the Hameau de la Reine and the Grandes Eaux Musicales fountain displays.

The section of the vast gardens nearest the palace, laid out between 1661 and 1700 in the formal French style, is famed for its geometrically aligned terraces, flowerbeds, tree-lined paths, ponds and fountains. The 400-odd statues of marble, bronze and lead were made by the most talented sculptors of the era. The English-style Jardins du Petit Trianon are more pastoral and have meandering, sheltered paths. Admission to the gardens is free, except on Tuesday and at weekends during the Grandes Eaux Musicales season.

The Grand Canal, 1.6km long and 62m wide, is oriented to reflect the setting sun. It is traversed by the 1km-long Petit Canal, creating a cross-shaped body of water with a perimeter of more than 5.5km. Louis XIV used to hold boating parties here. In season, you too can paddle around the Grand Canal in four-person rowing boats; the dock is at the canal's eastern end. The Orangerie, built under the Parterre du Midi (Southern Flowerbed) on the southwestern side of the palace, shelters tropical plants in winter.

The gardens' largest fountains are the 17th-century Bassin de Neptune (Neptune's Fountain), a dazzling mirage of 99 spouting gushers 300m north of the palace, and the Bassin d'Apollon (Apollo's Fountain) built in 1688 at the eastern end of the Grand Canal. The straight side of the Bassin de Neptune abuts a small round pond graced by a winged dragon. Emerging from the water in the centre of the Bassin d'Apollon is Apollo's chariot, pulled by rearing horses.

Try to time your visit for the Grandes Eaux Musicalesor the after-dark Grandes Eaux Nocturnes, truly magical 'dancing water' displays – set to music composed by baroque- and classical-era composers – throughout the grounds in summer.

In the middle of the vast 90-hectare park, about 1.5km northwest of the main palace, is the Domaine de Marie-Antoinette. The pink-colonnaded Grand Trianon was built in 1687 for Louis XIV and his family as a place of escape from the rigid etiquette of the court. Napoléon I had it redone in the Empire style and it was restored again in the 1960s. The much smaller, ochre-coloured Petit Trianon, built in the 1760s, was redecorated in 1867 by Empress Eugénie, the consort of Napoléon III, who added Louis XVI–style furnishings.