Versailles

Why visit Versailles

Louis XIV transformed his father’s hunting lodge into the monumental Château de Versailles in the mid-17th century, and it remains France’s most famous and grand palace. Situated in the leafy, bourgeois suburb of Versailles, 22km southwest of central Paris, the baroque château was the kingdom’s political capital and the seat of the royal court from 1682 up until the fateful events of 1789 when revolutionaries massacred the palace guard. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were ultimately dragged back to Paris, where they were ingloriously guillotined.