We just got back from our trip April trip and went to Versaille on April 8 (yes, Easter Sunday).

There was indeed a huge number of people buying tickets at the place the OP wrote about - the line was extremely long and many people on our train went and got it in and it was signed very clearly as a place to buy tickets.

We "knew" better and went to the Tourist Office (along with about six other families) to get our tickets - and couldn't get them there!!! My French is very limited and the woman gave me a big long speech, so I am not sure if it was because of the the Water Fountains or what, but bottom line was she said we couldn't get tickets there.

Versaille was wonderful, though, and we enjoyed the Fountains.

if you get the RER B to Versailles rive gauche, once you exit the station, IGNORE the helpful people guiding you to the ticket off ce across the road, but turn right out of the station [heading up a slight incline towards the town hall] and cross over anyway, walking up into the palace yard, which is cobbled.

from a hazy memory, [because we already had our tickets downloaded from the web so i wasn't looking too hard] the "official" ticket office is to the left of the security entrance, which is up by the iron railings that cross the palace yard, again on the left. [so you need to go to the far left, if you get my drift.]

i don't remember seeing a queue at the official ticket office [assuming I've got its position correct] - i suspect that many people like us had bought on line, or were in the guidator queue.

Hi way,

Thanks for the heads up.

A similar thing happened to Mark Twain about 150 years ago.

He ended up getting used lottery tickets instead of discount train tickets.

See "Innocents Abroad".

((I))

Both of our trips were early - February '06 and March '11, but we arrived as soon as it opened, prior to the buses. I've seen photo's of the ticket lines outside the palace, but neither time we went were there any lines outside, including the security lines. We walked in, showed our Museum passes and went straight in or got audioguides and straight in the tour.

Our first time, in speaking w/ DW, she reminded me that we actually stopped at the McDonald's first and peered into nearly every window in the shopping area where OP was herded. Because I was so anal about preparations, I knew that the main ticketing and security was at the palace, but it took as some extra minutes because I wasn't aware exactly how far up the hill (as annhig stated) the left turn was so we were cautious. The second time, we crossed immediately out of the station, walked to the top of the hill and turned left. Once we turned, we knew we were on the right path!