Si-Yuan Dong

Review of European leisure France (le pa...

This s my third time visiting Versailles. Much of ...

This s my third time visiting Versailles. Much of the building was under renovation the last two times and this time I got much more to see, and the garden fountains opened on the day we visited so we paid for both the palace and the fountain music show. The Versailles palace is beautiful, they finally finished painting the gold trims on and in the buildings so the palace looks glorious and elegant under the gentle morning sun. The king s quarter is opened to public, something we missed in the last visit, the rooms are magnificently restored, and pay attention to the portrait paintings on walls, they re not random, but important political and art figures who had connections with French monarchs, but unfortunately their stories are only written in French, no English words or audio guides available yet. The garden fountains are a bit disappointing. The historical fountains are beautiful but only opened for a session of two and half hours, one session in morning and one in afternoon, but the garden is big, much bigger than your eyes would suggest, and you ll run into a tight schedule to see all fountains in their working state. If you are short on time or leg work, do visit Apollo fountain, the one I think most spectacular amongst all. The two modern renovated and ever running fountains are not great pieces for camera work, and I dislike the three theatre grove particularly. Other problems during visit are reoccurring ones, including the confusing way signs and the staff whose advice sounds genuinely helpful but in fact confused us even more.