Versailles charges for the château, not for the town around it. The 800-hectare park, the royal Coach Gallery and the Jeu de Paume cost nothing, while Marché Notre-Dame feeds you for the price of a Paris coffee. Three days, roughly €25 total.
Beyond the ticketed parterres lies the free park: 800 hectares of woodland, tree-lined allées and the 1.67 km cruciform Grand Canal dug 1668-1679. Gates open 07:00 (08:00 winter). Enter by Grille de la Reine or Porte Saint-Antoine to skip queues.
The royal coach collection sits inside Mansart's 1682 Great Stables and costs nothing: Charles X's gilded coronation carriage, Napoleon's wedding berline and Louis XVIII's funeral chariot, all under the original stone vaults.
The real tennis court where 577 deputies swore the Tennis Court Oath on 20 June 1789 is a five-minute walk from the palace and free to enter. Bare, echoing, hung with David's preparatory sketch — the room where the monarchy started to end.
A 13-hectare ornamental lake dug by Swiss Guards in 1679, outside the paying perimeter and used by locals for running and fishing. The 1.4 km loop gives the classic upward view of the Orangerie's 1,000 citrus trees and the palace's south wing.
Four covered halls plus an open-air square laid out in 1671, trading Tuesday, Friday and Sunday mornings. Rotisserie chicken quarters, Brie de Meaux by the wedge and seasonal fruit make a full picnic for €7-9 a head.
The Saint-Louis quarter's restaurant street runs on formules rather than tourist pricing: crêperies, Lebanese counters and bistros doing a two-course lunch menu for €14-17, a short walk from the palace's south gate.
A cobbled 18th-century alley behind the market packed with antiquaires and brocanteurs, open Friday to Sunday. Browsing is free; small prints, old Versailles postcards and silver spoons start around €3-5 — the cheapest genuine souvenir in town.
Louis XVI's sister's country estate at 73 avenue de Paris, given to her in 1783 and now a free public park run by the département. Eight hectares of orchard, kitchen garden and lawn where locals eat their market haul in peace.
La Quintinie's nine-hectare kitchen garden of 1683 still supplies fruit for the school of horticulture that runs it. Some 450 pear and apple varieties trained along walls; the on-site shop sells its own juice and jam at grower prices.
The far western end of the Grand Canal, a 3 km walk from the palace and reached by free park paths. From the star-shaped clearing the entire Le Nôtre axis lines up back to the château facade — the view the sightseeing trains never reach.
A 200-hectare tree collection north of the park, run by the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle since 1927 and holding some 2,500 species. Open Saturday to Monday afternoons, April to mid-November; almost nobody from the palace crowds finds it.
The terrace above Hardouin-Mansart's 1686 Orangerie is inside the free-access zone on non-fountain days and gives the best drop-away view in Versailles: 150 m of vaulted arcades below, the Suisses lake beyond.