The Palace of Versailles
A half hour outside of Paris, the Palace of Versailles is one
of the world's grandest historical museums.
- In 1624, Louis XIII, the king of France, began the building of a hunting lodge in the small village of Versailles
- There are 18,000 square meters of history in the Palace of Versailles
-Versailles is half an hour by rail from the Gare St Lazarre station in Paris
The Palace of Versailles began as a modest hunting lodge. Well, as modest a lodge as one could expect from a French King.
Then Louis XIV enlarged and enrobed the old lodge, turning it into the great
Chateau we know today. In 1837, Louis-Philippe converted the whole
deal to a museum of French History in what may have been the historic starting point for the development of mass tourism.
And world war I was ended here with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.
