Palace of Versailles

From 1682 until the Revolution forced the royal family back to Paris in 1789, the Palace of Versailles (Château de Versailles) was the seat of the French monarchy. Louis XIV transformed his father's hunting lodge into a vast stage for royal power, and its centrepiece remains the Hall of Mirrors, where Charles Le Brun's ceiling paintings glorify the king's reign and where the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919.

Inside, visitors move through the State Apartments of the King and Queen, the Royal Chapel and the Royal Opera, along with galleries of paintings from the museum of French history that Louis-Philippe created in the 1830s. Outside, André Le Nôtre's formal gardens stretch towards the Grand Canal. Farther out are the Grand Trianon, the Petit Trianon and Marie Antoinette's rustic Hamlet, which show a more private side of court life.

The palace draws more than two and a half million visitors a year. Seeing the palace, gardens and Trianon estate together easily fills a full day.