My art-crazy daughter & I are travelling to Paris. We have time for one day trip out of the city. We were originally thinking of just doing Giverny one day. But now we're wondering if we should book one of these English-speaking VIATOR tours which has you do both Versailles & Giverny in one day, plus a nice lunch at some mill. It's got great reviews.

Any opinions on this joined tour? Should we pick one locale over the other? I was at Versailles 32 yrs ago as a teen myself. I've never been to Giverny to compare. Do you recommend a grp other than Viator? All suggestions welcomed. Thank you.

For me - Versailles and Monet in one day would be an overload. In fact, Versailles and anything else the same day would be an overload. There is more Monet art in Paris than there is in Giverny. We like to get to crowded places the first thing in the morning before the tour buses arrive. That's impossible with two events in the same day.

Stu Dudley

Also Viator is just a 3rd party booking agency and they don't offer any tours. They are just a middleman. It is always best to book with the actual tour provider because in the event there is a problem you'll have direct recourse with the tour provider and that may not be the case with any 3rd party booking agencies. You may also pay more with some of these 3rd party companies as they charge the tour companies a commission which the tour companies pass on to you the customer in the form of a higher price, so booking direct may save you money as well. The actual tour companies are usually fairly easy to find in a google search. Google "giverny versailles tour" and you'll get results, like pariscityvision and francetourisme.

#1 I always follow Stu's advice.

#2 Loved Versailles, lovely, outstanding, glorious. That said have you been to any other palaces, will your daughter get back to Paris, etc?

#3 Giverny was on my bucket list and I loved it after a lifetime of reading on Monet, loving his paintings and just dying to go.

Giverny, if you decide to go: be there when it opens and RUN very fast, to the bridge before anyone else gets there. Then stroll around there and then head back to the house and other gardens. And, sight is only open certain times of the year, so when are you going and that might settle it.

Which would I go to since been to both-tough choice only you can answer.

Fm advice is great. I just looked on a tour of the catacombs : 49 euros with forgot who and 79 euros with viator.
No difference visible except the price.

I think it would be fine if you are really pressed for time and want to see both, so can't take two days. Using a tour like that is the most efficient way to do that, it wouldn't be very possible on your own due to logisitics. They probably have a private van/bus that drives between the two.

For me, it would be too much in one day, I only go to one major museum or site per day when traveling, I do other stuff the rest of the day. Now having said that, neither is really an art museum/gallery per se, it is more the venue you are seeing. But Versailles is very large and there are various parts of it. Giverny (Monet house) not so much, I doubt if I spent more than a couple hours there actually at the site. You can look at the garden/pond and look at his house.

So I could actually see spending half a day at Versailles, then just a couple hours at Giverny in late afternoon. If you are short on vacation time, I don't think that would be so terrible.

There is no reason to pick one over the other, they are completely different and it would depend on your personal interests as to which you would choose based on what they are--the home of one particular painter including some sights around the home that were used in some of his paintings (not much artwork there really, his best works are in museums--in fact, I'm not sure there is any of his real works, there are reproductions), versus the palace and grounds of an important French king/queen which was also an important part of history. If you were particularly interested in French history, architecture and decorative arts, you would definitely go to Versailles. If Monet was your favorite painter of all time and you didn't care much about the former, and you liked smaller less formal gardens, you'd go to Giverny. I think if you have a full day to spend on only one, you'd get more bang for your buck at Versailles since there is so much to see there.

I've booked through Viator several times in various countries and never had a single problem with them. They are very convenient as a website that aggregates tours in a city, one-stop shopping where you don't have to try to research and figure out tour companies in one city. In fact, they give you contact information with the actual company you book, so I don't agree that you have no one to contact in case of problems, and sometimes their rates are actually cheaper than if you book directly. I've never seen them cost more, although perhaps it happens. It's a matter of free advertising and volume for the tour companies, just like hotel booking sites for hotels.

However, if you know the company, you can book directly, of course, no harm in that. That particular tour is the one by Parisvision, I know it. They charge the exact same price, 185 euro.

BTw as to the example of the catacombes tour, Viator has several such tours, some are 49 euro and some 79 euro, so you can choose whichever one you want. I doubt if the one paid outside Viator for 49 euro was the same one Viator charges 79 euro for, it probably was the same as the 49 euro one.