A separate ticket for Versailles’ secret corner: Louis XIV’s Grand Trianon, Marie-Antoinette’s Petit Trianon and the Queen’s Hamlet, far from the Hall of Mirrors crowds.
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The Trianon Estate is Versailles away from Versailles. About twenty minutes’ walk from the palace, this vast ensemble of palaces, gardens and follies was the sovereigns’ refuge when they wanted to escape the etiquette of the court.
The “Trianon Estate” ticket opens up three places in one: the Grand Trianon, a pink-marble palace conceived by Louis XIV, the Petit Trianon, Marie-Antoinette’s personal domain, and the Queen’s Hamlet, her rustic village. For many, it’s the finest moment of a day at Versailles — and also the one that hurried visitors most often skip.
For €15 (€12 for residents of the European Economic Area), a single ticket gives you access to the whole estate:
No timed slot is required: you go in whenever you like, within opening hours. Prices per the official site.
The Grand Trianon charms with its restraint: a single-storey palace, open to the gardens, where Louis XIV fled the splendour of Versailles. The pink marble of the peristyle is one of the finest views on the estate. Inside, the apartments with their light panelling also served Napoleon, then Louis-Philippe, who restored it.
The Petit Trianon tells another, more intimate story. A neoclassical masterpiece by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, this is where Marie-Antoinette took refuge, choosing her own guests, away from the court’s gaze. The boudoir with its rising mirrors and the queen’s little theatre bear witness to this life apart.
The Queen’s Hamlet is the culmination of this dream of elsewhere: a make-believe but charming village, with its thatched roofs, its mill and its pond. Here you completely forget the grandeur of the neighbouring palace — which is no doubt why it has become the most photographed spot on the estate.
The confusion is common, so let’s clear it up. The Palace ticket (from around €21, compulsory timed slot) gives access to the State Apartments and the Hall of Mirrors, but not the Trianon Estate. Conversely, the Trianon ticket doesn’t open the palace.
They’re two distinct worlds. The palace is the machinery of power, monumental and very busy. The Trianon is intimacy, nature and calm. Both lie within the same vast estate, but separated by 20 to 30 minutes’ walk across the park.
The price is simple and doesn’t change with the season:
Unlike the palace, the Trianon ticket requires no timed slot: it’s valid for the day. That’s one of its great conveniences. Indicative prices per the official site.
| Criterion | Trianon ticket alone | Passport |
|---|---|---|
| Trianon Estate | Yes | Yes |
| Queen’s Hamlet | Yes | Yes |
| Palace (Hall of Mirrors) | No | Yes |
| Musical Fountains | No | Yes (in season) |
| Fixed timed slot | No | Yes (palace) |
| Price | €15 (€12 EEA) | from €25 |
The Trianon ticket alone is for those who want only the Trianon Estate or who are returning to Versailles. To see the palace too on the same day, the Passport is better value.
The Trianon Estate is also included in the Passport, the “whole estate” ticket. So when should you prefer the Trianon ticket alone?
Conversely, if you want to see the palace and the Trianon on the same day, the Passport (from €25) works out cheaper than two separate tickets and guarantees your palace entry slot. The Trianon ticket alone, for its part, is unbeatable when the estate is your only destination. One last useful benchmark: as long as the palace is part of your plans, it’s better to switch to the Passport and book the slot; the moment it drops out, the Trianon ticket becomes the logical choice.
A key point for planning your day: the Trianon Estate opens at 12pm, well after the palace. It closes at 6.30pm in high season (1 Apr–31 Oct) and 5.30pm in low season (1 Nov–31 Mar).
Like the palace, the estate is closed every Monday, as well as on 1 January, 1 May and 25 December. This early-afternoon opening is perfectly timed: it’s exactly the moment when you’ve finished visiting the palace and are looking for somewhere quieter. So never plan the Trianon for the morning — you’d find the doors closed.
The Trianon lies north of the Grand Canal, away from the palace. Two options to get there:
You can also hire an electric buggy or a bike to explore the park at your own pace. The estate is vast (the Grand Canal alone is 1.5 km long): bring good shoes in any case.
The Trianon shines in the afternoon, and not only because it opens at noon. It’s also the window when it’s quietest:
The Trianon rewards those who take their time: wandering in the English garden, stopping at the Temple of Love, strolling along the hamlet pond. It’s the perfect antidote to the crush of the Hall of Mirrors.
A word on the seasons. Spring dresses the Petit Trianon gardens in spectacular blooms; autumn adorns the English garden and the hamlet with coppery tints that delight photographers. Winter, more bare, offers near-total tranquillity in return — you could well have the Queen’s Hamlet almost to yourself. Just check the reduced low-season hours before you go.
To understand the soul of the place, you have to go back to Marie-Antoinette. Stifled by the court’s interminable etiquette, the young queen made the Petit Trianon her personal domain, where she alone decided who could enter.
She had an English-style garden laid out there, the opposite of Versailles’ rigid perspectives, then the Queen’s Hamlet: a miniature village where she could play at the simple life, away from prying eyes. This quest for intimacy, long mocked, today gives the Trianon Estate its very particular charm — that of a Versailles on a human scale.
The contrast with the palace is striking. On one side, galleries designed to impress ambassadors and courtiers; on the other, rooms on the scale of a private life, where you can easily picture the queen receiving a few intimates. Visiting the Trianon after the palace means following that shift: from the theatre of power to the intimate wings. Many visitors tell us they keep a stronger memory of it than of the Hall of Mirrors.
They’re often confused, yet everything sets them apart — the era, the style and the spirit. The Grand Trianon was born under Louis XIV: from 1670, the king had a first “Porcelain Trianon” built, soon replaced in 1687 by the present pink-marble palace, designed in the spirit of Jules Hardouin-Mansart. Everything there is single-storey, open to the gardens, conceived for relaxation and intimate suppers.
The Petit Trianon, for its part, appeared nearly a century later. Commissioned by Louis XV for Madame de Pompadour, completed in 1768, it’s a neoclassical jewel of perfect proportions, by Ange-Jacques Gabriel. Louis XVI then gave it to Marie-Antoinette, who made it her refuge.
In concrete terms, for the visitor: the Grand Trianon impresses with its scale and its marble peristyle; the Petit Trianon touches with its intimate scale and the modernity of its tone. Seeing both in succession means crossing a century of French taste in a few hundred metres.
Behind its picturesque cottages, the Queen’s Hamlet tells of a genuine project. Marie-Antoinette had it built from 1783 by the architect Richard Mique, drawing inspiration from Normandy villages and the fashionable “pleasure hamlets” of the aristocracy of the time.
Far from being a mere stage set, it was a small working estate: there was a farm with its animals, a dairy, a mill, a dovecote and the Queen’s House, linked by a gallery to the Billiard House. The queen came to stroll there, watch over the farmyard and offer her children an idealised image of rural life.
This rustic staging was long held against her — a symbol, in the eyes of her detractors, of a court cut off from the people. Now restored, the hamlet can be visited as a rare testament to the art of late-18th-century gardens, and remains the most photographed spot on the estate.
The gardens aren’t a mere backdrop: they’re an essential part of the visit, and one of the estate’s loveliest surprises. They set two philosophies of landscape against each other.
Take the time to link these spaces on foot: moving from the geometric layout of the Grand Trianon to the curves of the English garden lets you grasp, at a single glance, all that separates Louis XIV from Marie-Antoinette.
The Trianon Estate ticket (€15, €12 for EEA residents) gives access to the Grand Trianon, the Petit Trianon and the Queen’s Hamlet, along with their gardens. It does not include the palace or the Hall of Mirrors, which require a separate ticket.
Yes. The Passport (from €25) covers the whole estate: the palace with a guaranteed slot, the Trianon Estate, the Queen’s Hamlet and the gardens. The Trianon ticket alone is for those who only want the Trianon Estate or who are returning to Versailles.
The Trianon Estate opens at 12pm, i.e. afternoon only. It closes at 6.30pm in high season and 5.30pm in low season. Like the palace, it’s closed on Monday, as well as on 1 January, 1 May and 25 December. Never plan it for the morning.
Reckon on 20 to 30 minutes’ walk across the gardens, or take the little train that serves the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon from the palace’s north terrace. Electric buggies and bikes are also available to hire.
No. Unlike the palace, the Trianon ticket requires no timed slot: it’s valid for the day and you go in freely after 12pm. That’s one of this ticket’s great conveniences.
The Grand Trianon is a pink-marble palace conceived by Louis XIV at the end of the 17th century, opening onto large French gardens. The Petit Trianon, later and more intimate, is a neoclassical masterpiece given by Louis XVI to Marie-Antoinette, surrounded by an English garden and the Queen’s Hamlet. The same Trianon Estate ticket gives access to both.
Book your skip-the-line tickets online and save hours of queuing.