Versailles King's Private Apartments: Louis XV and XVI Rooms, Skip the Line

The King's Private Apartments are not on the ordinary visitor route. This guided tour goes in, with skip-the-line entry to the palace so the queue outside is not part of the day.

Behind the state rooms lies the part of Versailles built for one man rather than for an audience. The guide leads through the rooms used by Louis XV and Louis XVI, along with galleries, laboratories and the royal libraries. Laboratories, in a palace, sound like a mistake until you see them: this was where kings who were expected to perform majesty all day went to read, to experiment and to be left alone. The furniture is smaller, the ceilings lower, the scale suddenly domestic.

The route then rejoins the Hall of Mirrors, and the contrast does the explaining. The same monarch, a few doors away, in two entirely different registers.

When the guided part ends the ticket does not. The rest of Versailles is open to walk at your own pace, with the private side of the palace already seen and the public side read differently because of it.