Quick Guide to the Fountains of Versailles

03/29/22

The Versailles Fountains are designed in different styles and sizes, and they all tell a different story. The construction and management of the Fountains at Versailles is fascinating too. Being Versailles set far from a water source, the water supply to ensure the fountains’ functioning was always a big challenge.

Here’s the roundup of the best Fountains in Versailles, in no particular order, with a Versailles Fountains map to help you pinpoint all these amazing fountains. You will also learn about the different garden shows, water supply, and what happens below the grounds!

How many fountains are there at Versailles? There a 50 fountains and 620 water jets fed by 35 km of piping

The Gardens of Versailles are the most famous in France. They were designed by the landscape designer André Le Notre, and they are an essential part of the royal residence. For the King, the Gardens of Versailles were as important as the Palace of Versailles itself, and he personally supervised the design and construction of the Gardens.

The Gardens of Versailles surround the Palace on three sides. The axis East-West is known as the Grande Perspective (big perspective), from the Palace to the Grand Canal.

The closest gardens to the Palace are known as Le Petit Parc, and a fence limits them. They are French-style gardens with a geometric design, constituted of parterres animated by fountains and other water games.

The gardens around the Grand Canal are known as Le Grand Parc, and they look like a small forest. Explore this part of Versailles by bike or from the water on a rowboat.

All the fountains of Versailles are located in the Petit Parc. The Petit Parc is free to visit during the low season, from 1 November to 31 March.

From 1 November to 31 March (low season), the fountains don’t work, and some grooves are closed to the public. On the other hand, there are fewer visitors, and it is more enjoyable to stroll around the park.

From 1 April to 31 October (high season), the Petit Parc hosts different shows, and there is an entrance ticket to visit it. You can buy this ticket alone or combined with the tickets to the Palace or Trianons (there are interesting Versailles bundles that save you money).

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Versailles Fountains Schedule

During the Versailles Fountain Shows, the fountains are not working all day. Therefore, it is important to know the Versailles Fountain show times – especially if you want to visit the Palace. Before leaving for Versailles, study the Versailles Fountains schedule and plan your Versailles itinerary accordingly.

Versailles Fountains Map

Click here to view the Versailles Fountains Map on Google

This is one of the most important fountains in Versailles, from an aesthetic and symbolic point of view and a technical point of view.

Latona Fountain is part of the Grande Perspective, together with the Apollo Fountain and the Grand Canal. It illustrates the story of Latona, the mother of Apollo and Diana, who protects her children from the insults of Lycia’s peasants. She pleads with Jupiter to avenge her, and the god turns the inhabitants of Lycia into frogs and lizards. Latona Fountain also has a parterre containing two Lizard Fountains.

Latona Fountain occupies a nodal place in the heart of the Petit Parc, and it has the role of redistributing the waters. Thanks to this fountain, Versailles gets the necessary water to feed most of the fountains.

The water jets on the water parterres above converge into the Latona Fountain. This fountain spreads the water, always by gravity, to the water basins in the south, to a part of the Enceladus Fountain, and Apollon’s chariot below.

Latona Fountain is a fascinating fountain also below the ground. It has around 70 water jets, each fed by a different pipe, creating a complex network of pipes nicknamed ‘the spider.’ This civil work of engineering is unique in the world, and most of these pipes date from King Louis XIV!

The Apollo Foutain is another of the key elements of the Grande Perspective. It exists since the time of King Louis XIII, and it was known as the Lake of the Swans. King Louis XIV later added the spectacular work in gilded lead of Apollo riding his chariot.

Apollo is the Sun God, one of the 12 Greek Gods of Mount Olympus, and the symbol of King Louis XIV. The Apollo Fountain features the god bursting forth from the water in anticipation of his daily flight above the earth.

The Apollo Fountain is fed by Latona Fountain by gravity.

The Salle de Bal is the last groove designed by Le Notre between 1678 and 1682, and it represents a kind of open-air amphitheater.

Here, Le Notre got the most out of the land’s different elevations by creating a big cascade where the water arrives by gravity from the reservoirs below the Palace’s water beds. In the center of this Ball Room, there was a kind of stage or dance floor today disappeared while the musicians were found on the top of the amphitheater.

This Salle de Bal was not good for shows (the cascade is very noisy), but the King organized frequent soirées or dinners here. These dinners were delightful in the summer, surrounded by the wall of freshwater.

The Salle de Bal is closed during the winter. It is only accessible during the Versailles Fountain Shows.

This is one of the most original fountains Versailles has to offer. The Enceladus Fountain dates from 1675, and it represents the giant Enceladus buried under the rocks of Mount Olympus by the gods he and his brothers had wished to dethrone.

In the fountain, the giant is struggling to survive, and his suffering is captured by a powerful water jet that springs from his mouth like a scream. 

Enceladus has an impressive water jet of 23 meters, one of the gardens’ highest jets. This fountain is only accessible during the Versailles Fountain Shows, but out of season, you can see the giant from the fence.

The sculptures were recycled from the Tethys Grotto, demolished to build the present North Wing of the Palace, and they are considered a masterpiece of French sculpture in the 17th century.

This groove is only accessible during the Versailles Fountain Shows, and there’s no way to see anything of this fountain during the low season.

The Neptune Fountain, in the north of the Petit Parc, marks the gardens’ perspective North-South. This basin was designed under the reign of King Louis XIV but only finished with the last sculptures under King Louis XV.

The central sculpture group represents the god Neptune and Amphitrite, while the other two sculpture groups represent Proteus and Ocean with numerous marine animals.

The Neptune Fountain is greatly admired for the number, size, and variety of water jets falling around the lead sculptures, and it is the highlight of the Versailles Fountain show at the end of the afternoon.

The Neptune Fountain receives the waters from the other fountains located above. Thanks to its 99 water jets, the basin turns into a water wall closing the perspective together with the Dragon Fountain just behind it.

The Fountains of Versailles are an alliance of art and technique that requires a lot of water. When all the fountains were running, in 1715, they consumed the totality of 69,000 muids (one muid is equivalent to about 130 liters) of water in three hours!

On the top of the hill and far from any water source, the Palace’s location was not ideal for such a big project of water basins and fountains. Therefore, water supply was a recurring problem in Versailles.

This technical challenge required the help of hydraulic engineers, architects, and fountain masters who had to think about bringing water to Versailles, redistributing it to the fountains, and creating surprising water effects to arouse visitors’ wonder.

The first solution to solve this water issue was to create an artificial pond near the Palace, the Lac de Clagny. From there, water was pumped with the help of water mills, windmills, or pumps moved by horse carousels and then stocked in the reservoirs in the Domain of Versailles. This first hydraulic system made it possible to supply the dozen or so existing fountains, and King Louis XIV inaugurated the first Grandes Eaux de Versailles on 17 August 1666.

But the King wanted to add other fountains and water jets, so more water was necessary. During the following years, the hydraulic engineers brought more water to the Domain of Versailles by constructing other artificial ponds. Bucket windmills, siphons, and aqueducts completed the network to bring the water from the ponds to the reservoirs in the Domain of Versailles.

Over the years, the wooden pipes were replaced by lead pipes and then by cast iron. The hydrant man become an important function in the Palace, the key to the fountains’ good operation, to the point that the King ennobled some of them.

The idea of ​​pumping water from the Seine, the major river closest to Versailles, had existed for several years. But the distance of 10 km and especially the drop of 142 meters required the design of a monumental and expensive machine to pump water and bring it to Versailles’ reservoirs.

Finally, in 1682 the first Machine de Marly was inaugurated in the presence of the King and the court. This machine pumped water from the Seine to the Domain of Versailles and the Château de Marly thanks to a system of wooden wheels, siphons, and an aqueduct.

At that time, this amazing machine was considered the Eighth World Wonder and it was visited by important dignitaries like Queen Victoria of England, the Tsar of Russia, and the US President.

At this time, the waters of Versailles park operate in a closed circuit that consumes 4,500 m3 per hour, with 35 km of the piping system unchanged since the 17th century. A team of 13 hydrant men manages this circuit.