We made a daring choice to rent-a-car in order to squeeze Versailles and Giverny into the same sightseeing day. Morning for Versailles and afternoon for Giverny.
Versailles is one of those love it and hate ot kind of places. You love ot because it’s magnificent. The scale and the beauty you see are quite amazing. But you hate it because the crowds at Versailles can be frighteningly large.
The tour busses roll into the parking lot by the dozen starting at around 10:00, so the trick is to beat the crest of the wave.
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We picked up our rent-a-car and drove to Versailles and made it to the gates by about 9:45. Early enough to beat most or the evil busses but not all.
We practically roller skated through the apartments despite the thickness of the crowds – we wanted to see the rooms but couldn’t take the crowds so rushed theough as quickly as we could. Still managed to snap some great photos in the chateau though!
The Hall of Mirrors, of course was just as amazing as always, crowds or not. This is one room that can take a crowd with aplomb.
And also through parts of the beautiful gardens, although at one point we did have to make sure we weren’t lost and potentially missing the Grand Triannon.
We made it out to the Grand Triannon – a 3km walk – by 11:45. For the thousands that were at the chateau, there were just a couple of hundred people at the Grand Triannon. Yay! So we able to see it pretty fast, which was probably a good thing since I think we were done looking at richly appointed large room after richly appointed large room.
We caught Le Petit Train from the Grand Triannon back to the Palace rather than walking the 3km and that saved us loads of time.
