It’s Bastille Day, 2025, and as a pleasant interruption to our month-long stay in Paris, we’re off to Versailles to spend the day and night in the Airelles Chateau de Versailles.

Airelles is a high-end hotel chain with outposts in Courchevel, St. Tropez, and Venice. We’ve read a lot about their relatively new hotel a half an hour south of Paris, the only hotel on the very grounds of the Chateau de Versailles, and want to experience it on this most French of all French holidays. We recognize the dissonance of celebrating the anniversary of an act of revolution in the place most closely associated with the targets of that rebellion, but the contradiction seems not to have occurred to the French, for whom this day of cultural schadenfreude is just a good excuse to skip work and set off some fireworks.

We ride in a very non-proletarian S-Class Mercedes from the west side of Paris to the charming town of Versailles. Quick and comfortable drive, less than 30 minutes. On arrival at the Airelles Chateau, we’re steeped in the 18th century, with staff in costume leggings and rooms bedecked to the hilt in period decor. Built in 1681, the structure once housed the offices of Louis XIV’s chief accountant, and he had a kingdom to account for.

Something’s a bit off, though, starting with the wait for our room to be ready (two o’clock, which comes and goes as we nibble on a croque monsieur in the heavily-used waiting lounge). The greeting staff is very young and rather uncoordinated, and after an overlong tour of the small but impressive property a stone’s throw from the Palace, we’re still waiting. Surprising number of kids, including infants, and badly-dressed Americans, too; we learn later that they emphasize family-friendliness (be forewarned), which seems very much at odds with the elegance and formality of the surroundings, and the pretense that, while there, we’re all royalty.

Finally admitted to our suite, it’s a street-facing hodgepodge of beautifully furnished but oddly laid-out rooms, no doubt dictated by restrictions on what walls of the historic building could be moved or destroyed. Pretty and suitably spacious, but wildly impractical, with one tiny sink in the otherwise adequate master bath, poor lighting throughout (we’re in the 18th century, remember), scattered snips of closet space. And please, could we have a mirror over the tiny sink in the toilet room, so a man might shave there? Still, a wonderful king-sized bed and swag galore (right down to complimentary pajamas, which might have come in handy later).

The point of this hotel is its propinquity to the Chateau of Versailles, and we’re signed up for the “private” tour (hotel patrons only) at 6 and dinner at 8. We find ourselves sharing a van over to the chateau with none other than Neil Young (fresh off a gig in Paris the night before) and his wife Daryl Hannah, along with some scary-looking social x-ray girlfriend of theirs. Daryl is sweet and unassuming, Neil silent behind his pandemic mask, the x-ray quickly tiring of us commoners. The tour itself is delightful (Neil has his own, and peels off), with a charming French guide, just long enough, through rooms some of which we remember from prior visits. Then we pile back in the van to the hotel (again with the Youngs) and change for dinner.

The next disappointment of the hotel is the obvious caste system that applies to the dining rooms, of which there are two, one overlooking the Orangerie and decked out in gilt, the other (where we’re seated) a rather ordinary space that’s clearly the “kids’ table” room, for families and those in t-shirts (which I am not). I fume for awhile, ‘till my wise wife tells me to get over it. The Alain Ducasse dinner is nice but not stunning, the service (with all those costumed waitstaff) rather slapdash and inattentive. I decide to attribute this to it being Bastille Day and very late in the tourist season. (Moral: specify the “back” or “gold” dining room when making a dinner reservation.)

Next on the agenda is an outing to view the fireworks over the Trianons, which we decide to forego, but fetch after-dinner drinks from the tiny, beautiful “chapel bar” and watch the fireworks by leaning out a window of our room. Fantastic.

Next morning, however, witnesses perhaps the strangest moment of our stay. We’d agreed to what we understood would be an early visit from room staff to draw a bath for my wife (as though she were Marie Antoinette) and lay out some sort of morning juice refreshment (all possible without disturbing us, we thought, because of the way most of the suite could be completely closed off from the bathroom areas). Instead, we’re awakened at precisely 7:45 by a very tall man looming over our bed in 18th century garb, wishing us a bon jour and sweeping open all the curtains in our bedroom as we cower under the covers! To say this is creepy and ill-advised understates matters; I wonder later if any staff have been shot while performing this invasive ritual.

In any event, it gets us up after the invader has retreated, and we make our way eventually down to a delightful breakfast in the “grown-up” dining room (though now admitting the families that were banished last evening).

A final skirmish with the well-intentioned desk staff over whether our departure transfer can be moved earlier without a surcharge on top of the already steep fare (it can’t), and we bid an ambivalent adieu to the Airelles Chateau de Versailles, truly a mixed bag of delight, missteps, and oddments.