Explore the lesser-known corners of the palace gardens where even Marie Antoinette loved to escape.

Most visitors spend their entire Versailles trip indoors, shuffling past the Hall of Mirrors with a hundred other people. It's worth seeing — but the gardens, which most people treat as a photo backdrop on the way out, are where the estate actually breathes.

Where the crowds thin out

Past the main parterres, the paths fan out into groves that were designed as private retreats for the royal family, and they're still quiet today simply because most visitors run out of time before they reach them.

• The Queen's Grove, a maze of hedges that once hid intimate gatherings
• The Petit Trianon's English garden, deliberately informal by design
• The Hamlet, Marie Antoinette's rustic retreat, complete with a working farm

If your schedule allows it, give yourself a full day rather than a half-day — the estate is large enough that rushing it defeats the point of coming at all.