Fontainebleau Palace costs €17 (Nov 2026), the same for every nationality, and it is a 40-minute train ride from Gare de Lyon in Paris, plus a bus to the entrance. You can do it as a day trip, but the palace is closed on Tuesdays and the surrounding forest only partly reopened after the July fire.
| Admission | €17 (full) and €15 (reduced), Nov 2026; valid all day and includes the Grands Appartements and the Napoleon I Museum |
|---|---|
| Hours | Every day except Tuesday, January 1, May 1 and December 25; October to March, 9:30 am to 5 pm (last entry 4:15 pm) |
| Visit time | About 2 hours for the palace alone; a full day with the gardens and forest |
| Gardens and park | Free: gardens 9 am to 5 pm from November to February; the park is open 24 hours |
| From Paris | Transilien line R from Gare de Lyon to Fontainebleau-Avon (about 40 min), plus a bus to the palace |
| Free | Under 18s and the first Sunday of the month, except in July and August |
| Address | Place Charles de Gaulle, 77300 Fontainebleau |
Checked in Nov 2026 on official channels. Prices and hours from the palace’s official website; confirm before you go.
Is Fontainebleau Palace worth visiting and how much time do you need?
Yes, especially if you have already seen Versailles or want a royal palace with fewer crowds: Fontainebleau was home to 34 French kings and 2 emperors, from the Middle Ages to the 19th century, and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1981, according to the palace’s official website. Two hours is enough for the route inside the palace, and the rest of the day is well spent in the gardens, the 130-hectare park or the forest.
Dica: Aproveite também para fazer estes passeios em Paris
Tour pelo exterior da catedral de Notre Dame + Ingresso da cripta . Duração: 2 horas
Disneyland Paris Duração: 3 horas ou mais
Passeio de barco pelo Sena. Duração: 1h
Ingresso do 3º andar da Torre Eiffel. Duração: 2 a 3 horas
Ingresso do Palácio de Versalhes. Duração: 2 a 3 horas
Veja mais passeio em Paris aqui.
The palace recommends about 2 hours for the full route covered by the ticket. If you leave Paris in the morning, you reach the palace comfortably before lunch, visit until mid-afternoon and still have daylight for the gardens. Outside summer the palace closes at 5 pm, and that closing time, not the train, sets the pace of your day.
How much is a ticket to Fontainebleau Palace and who gets in free?
A ticket to Fontainebleau Palace costs €17 at the full rate and €15 reduced (Nov 2026, official website), and the price is the same for every nationality: there is no surcharge for visitors from outside the European Economic Area, as there is at the Louvre and Versailles. The ticket covers the Grands Appartements and the Napoleon I Museum and is valid all day (palace fares). Buy on the official ticket site or at the ticket office on the day.
| Option | Price (Nov 2026) | What is included |
|---|---|---|
| Palace ticket | €17 (reduced €15), Nov 2026 | Grands Appartements, Napoleon I Museum and the current exhibition |
| With video guide | €21 (€17 + €4), Nov 2026 | Video guide collected at reception, subject to tablet availability; the palace lists 11 languages |
| With guided tour | €24 (€17 + €7), Nov 2026 | Rooms closed to the standard route; in French all year, in English only in summer |
| Gardens and park | Free | Courtyards, gardens (shorter hours in winter) and park, no ticket needed |
Who gets in free: under-18s, with ID, and everyone on the first Sunday of each month except July and August; the next ones are December 6 and January 3. Visitors aged 18 to 25 only get in free if they are long-term residents of the European Union, which does not apply to tourists. In torreeiffel.com.br’s Nov 2026 survey, an adult’s spend at the palace ranges from €17 to €24, depending on the video guide or guided tour.
In Nov 2026 the same ticket includes the exhibition on Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI at Fontainebleau, on from October 11, 2026 to January 25, 2027, with the Salle de la Belle Cheminée and the Boudoir d’Argent reassembled with their original furniture (VisitParisRegion and the palace ticket site). To compare the price with other palaces and museums, see the guide to ticket prices in Paris.
How do you get from Paris to Fontainebleau Palace by train and bus?
By train, take the Transilien R at Gare de Lyon, on the mainline platforms, towards Montargis, Montereau or Laroche-Migennes, and get off at Fontainebleau-Avon: the trip takes about 40 minutes (palace official website). The station is in Avon, almost 3 km from the palace as the crow flies, so you still need a connection: the local bus stops in front of the station and runs to the “Château” stop.
| Option | Time | Cost | When it makes sense |
|---|---|---|---|
| Train R + bus | About 40 min by train, plus the bus | Check the fare on SNCF Connect or the Île-de-France Mobilités website | The default option for a day without a car |
| Train R + walk | About 40 min by train, plus the walk to the palace | Train fare only | A dry day and a willingness to walk through town |
| Car | About 1 hour on the A6, 60 km | Fuel, tolls and parking in town | Anyone combining the palace, forest and Barbizon |
| Excursion from Paris | About 9 hours | Check the price on Civitatis | Anyone who prefers a coach, ticket and audio guide included, with Vaux-le-Vicomte |
A standard Paris metro ticket does not cover this trip: Fontainebleau is far from the central zones, and the fare depends on how you pay, so check the price on SNCF Connect or the Île-de-France Mobilités website before buying. The City of Paris says the Navigo pass is valid on line R to Fontainebleau-Avon (Aug 2026), but check that your zone covers the station. By car, take the A6 to the Fontainebleau exit, and the toll rules are in the guide to driving in France. If you prefer an excursion, you can book the tour combining Fontainebleau and Vaux-le-Vicomte, with ticket and audio guide, on Civitatis.
Fontainebleau or Versailles: which is the better day out?
Fontainebleau pays off more if you want history rather than crowds: a ticket costs €17 all year, against €25 from November to March and €35 from April to October for non-EU visitors at Versailles (Nov 2026, torreeiffel.com.br’s Versailles guide). Versailles wins on spectacle, with the Hall of Mirrors and Le Nôtre’s gardens; Fontainebleau wins on authenticity, because it is France’s most fully furnished royal palace and holds the only historic throne room preserved in the country, according to the official website.
| Criterion | Fontainebleau | Versailles |
|---|---|---|
| Ticket (Nov 2026) | €17 for everyone, Nov 2026 | €25 Nov to Mar; €35 Apr to Oct for non-EU visitors, Nov 2026 |
| Visit time | About 2 hours in the palace | Half a day to a full day, with gardens |
| Getting there from Paris | Train R plus bus, about 40 min by train | RER C, direct train from central Paris |
| Forest and nature | 250 km² forest right next to the palace | The palace gardens and park |
| Who it suits | Anyone who has been to Versailles, wants calm or likes nature | A first trip to France and the Sun King’s icon |
If you have only one free day and have never seen a French palace, Versailles is still the safe choice; everything is in the guide to the Palace of Versailles. For a shorter third option, look at the Chantilly Castle, less than half an hour by train from Paris, and if you have more days you can head to the Loire Valley.
What to see in the palace and gardens?
The most valuable part of the route is the series of rooms showing eight centuries of royal living: the Gallery of Francis I, with its Renaissance art, the apartments of Marie-Antoinette and Napoleon, the Throne Room and the Napoleon I Museum, all on the same ticket. The palace holds more than 40,000 works, and the rooms are furnished according to the period: the Boudoir d’Argent, for example, changes from Marie-Antoinette’s style to Josephine’s or Eugénie’s (official website).
Outside, the Grand Parterre, designed by André Le Nôtre between 1660 and 1664, covers 14 hectares and is the largest in Europe, and Henri IV’s Grand Canal cuts straight across the park. The gardens are free and open at 9 am; the Diana Garden and the English Garden close half an hour and an hour before the rest, and the palace warns that in bad weather the gardens may close. On a sunny day, set aside 1 hour just for the lake and the park.
For those who want to go beyond the self-guided route, the guided tour costs €7 (Nov 2026) on top of the ticket and opens areas closed to the standard route. It is in French all year and in English only in summer, so if you do not speak French you are left with the video guide, which the palace says comes in 11 languages; check that your language is included before paying the €4.
Is the Fontainebleau forest open and what can you do there?
Partly: after the July 2026 fire, the forest reopened on August 22 for more than 80% of its area, except about 2,000 hectares, according to the Office National des Forêts (Sortiraparis), and the French Hiking Federation warned on September 30 that some routes were still closed. Before you go, open the ONF map of open zones and respect closed areas, even if they are not signposted. Fire, cigarettes and camping stoves are banned, and dogs must be on a leash.
The forest is 60 km from Paris, covers about 250 km² and has more than 300 km of waymarked trails, with landscapes ranging from oak and beech woods to sandstone boulders (VisitParisRegion and Wikipedia). If you come by train you can use the station-to-station walks, such as the 18 km route between Fontainebleau-Avon and Bois-le-Roi, with the Denecourt tower and the Rocher Canon, suggested by the City of Paris in Aug 2026, but only if the area is open on the day.
Climbing at Fontainebleau is bouldering: no rope, on rocks a few metres high scattered in a “chaos” over a sandy floor. The numbered circuits are marked with coloured arrows by difficulty, from yellow (not very hard) to blue, red and black (Wikipedia). Beginners should start with the easiest ones, bring climbing shoes and a crash pad and, if possible, hire a local guide; areas such as Cuvier, Apremont and Franchard are classics, but they only belong on your itinerary if they are open.
Can you combine Fontainebleau with Barbizon?
You can, by car or taxi, and it is worth it if you like painting and forests: Barbizon is about 8 km from the palace as the crow flies and gave its name to the 19th-century school of landscape painters, in which Théodore Rousseau and Jean-François Millet lived and died in the village. Rousseau painted the old oaks of Bas-Bréau, the stretch of forest next to Barbizon, and the school’s museum is housed in the Auberge Ganne and his former home and studio.
Public transport between the two towns is limited, so the simplest way is to arrange a taxi or bring a car. Barbizon’s tourist office is at 84 bis Grande Rue (phone +33 1 60 74 99 99) and can tell you opening hours and what is open in the forest, which matters after the fire. Check the museum’s days and price on the official channel before you go. The itinerary becomes: palace in the morning, lunch in Fontainebleau and Barbizon in the afternoon.
How much does the whole day cost and is it worth staying overnight?
The day costs €21 per adult for the palace and video guide alone (€17 + €4, Nov 2026), plus the train fare (check on SNCF Connect) and lunch. With the guided tour, the palace total rises to €24 (Nov 2026). Gardens, park and forest charge no entry, so the day stays cheap if you do the palace first and use the rest as a walk.
A day trip is enough for the palace; staying overnight only makes sense for climbing, walking in the forest at leisure or adding Barbizon. In that case, see the hotel offers in Fontainebleau on Booking.com and prefer to stay near the station or the town centre so you do not depend on the bus. If you would rather keep travelling around the country, you will find trains and routes in the guide to France by train and other day trips in day trips from Paris.
What nobody tells you about Fontainebleau
- Closed on Tuesdays: the palace does not open on Tuesdays, and anyone who arrives without checking the day wastes the trip out. The gardens and park, on the other hand, stay open.
- The station is not close: Fontainebleau-Avon is almost 3 km from the palace as the crow flies; without the bus, you have to walk through town.
- It gets dark early: from October to March the last entry is at 4:15 pm, and the palace closes at 5 pm.
- Forest still recovering: after the July fire, part of the massif is still closed; check the ONF map on the day.
- The free first Sunday is crowded: free entry draws a lot of people; if the price is not a concern, go on another day.
- Metal-framed strollers are not allowed in: they go in the free cloakroom, according to the palace rules.
Frequently asked questions
Is Fontainebleau Palace open on Tuesdays?
Fontainebleau Palace is closed on Tuesdays, as well as on January 1, May 1 and December 25, according to the official website (Nov 2026). On other days it opens at 9:30 am and closes at 5 pm from October to March, with last entry at 4:15 pm; from April to September it closes at 6 pm. Gardens and park stay open without a ticket.
How long is the train from Paris to Fontainebleau?
The train from Paris to Fontainebleau takes about 40 minutes on Transilien line R, from Gare de Lyon to Fontainebleau-Avon station, according to the local tourist office. Then you still need the local bus to the “Château” stop, so allow a little over an hour door to door.
Do non-EU visitors pay more at Fontainebleau Palace?
Non-EU visitors pay the same as everyone else at Fontainebleau Palace: €17 full price, €15 reduced (Nov 2026, official website). Unlike the Louvre and Versailles, the palace has no higher fare for people from outside the European Economic Area. Under-18s get in free with ID.
Is Fontainebleau Palace free on the first Sunday of the month?
Fontainebleau Palace is free on the first Sunday of each month, except in July and August, according to the official website (Nov 2026). The next ones are December 6, 2026 and January 3, 2027. Free entry applies to everyone, but the day is usually more crowded.
Can you climb in Fontainebleau forest without experience?
Yes, as long as it is bouldering, climbing on low blocks without a rope, and you prepare: start with the easiest circuits, bring climbing shoes and a crash pad and, if you can, hire a guide. First check the ONF map, because part of Fontainebleau forest was closed after the July 2026 fire.
Conclusion
Go to Fontainebleau if you have already seen Versailles or want a royal palace with gardens and forest in the same day: take the Transilien R in the morning, reach the palace before noon, visit for 2 hours and leave the afternoon for the park. Avoid Tuesdays, check the forest map before any trail and leave Barbizon for those with a car or taxi. More itinerary ideas in France itinerary for a first trip and on torreeiffel.com.br.
How we checked this information
Tickets, hours, free admission, video guide and guided tour: official website of Fontainebleau Palace (Nov 2026). Train and bus times: Fontainebleau tourist office and the palace website. Forest: ONF (via Sortiraparis, Aug 2026) and FFRandonnée (Sep 30, 2026). Versailles: torreeiffel.com.br guide (Nov 2026). Not checked: the Paris-Fontainebleau train fare (the Île-de-France Mobilités and SNCF sites block automated queries), the Barbizon museum price, the excursion price and whether the palace is included in the Paris Museum Pass.