Why Rundāle Palace is the Versailles no one talks about

The comparison that needs making

In 2026, an adult ticket to the Palace of Versailles costs €21. Entry includes the Hall of Mirrors, the Grand Apartments, and the grounds — but not the Trianon palaces, not the special exhibitions, not the guided tours. On a summer Saturday, you share the experience with 20,000 other visitors. You queue. You press forward through corridors. You cannot stop to look at a ceiling properly because the crowd behind you won’t allow it.

A ticket to Rundāle Palace in Latvia costs €12. On a summer Saturday, you might share the state rooms with forty other visitors. You can stop as long as you like in front of the Gold Hall ceiling. You can photograph the Rose Garden without waiting for a gap in the crowd. The palace was designed by the same architect who designed the Hermitage and the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg.

This comparison sounds like hyperbole. It is not. Rundāle is one of the most significant baroque palaces in Northern Europe, and its obscurity outside of Latvia is a genuine puzzle that European tourism has not yet corrected.

Bartolomeo Rastrelli and the Duchy of Courland

Understanding why Rundāle exists requires a short history lesson. In the 18th century, Latvia did not exist as a political entity. The western territory — Kurzeme and Zemgale — formed the Duchy of Courland, a semi-autonomous state that was technically a vassal of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth but operated with considerable independence under its own dukes.

Ernst Johann von Biron became Duke of Courland in 1737. He was also the favourite and probable lover of Empress Anna of Russia, which gave him access to Russia’s imperial resources and architects. He commissioned Bartolomeo Rastrelli, the Italian-born architect working at the Russian court who would later design the Winter Palace, to build two palaces: one in Jelgava (destroyed in World War II) and one in Rundāle.

Rundāle was built in two phases — the main structure from 1736-1740, the interiors and gardens completed in the 1760s. The result is 138 rooms, of which 40 are currently open to visitors, with state rooms decorated in a Rococo style that is in direct dialogue with Versailles and the German Schloss tradition.

Biron’s story adds to the interest. After Empress Anna died in 1740, he was arrested, convicted of treason, and exiled to Siberia. He returned to Courland under Catherine the Great in 1763 and completed Rundāle’s interiors. The palace therefore represents both his triumph and his fall — a Versailles built by someone who knew exactly how fragile power was.

What the palace looks like

The state rooms are the point. The Gold Hall (Zelta zāle), the ceremonial centerpiece, has gilded stucco ornamentation by the German master craftsman Johann Michael Graff that covers the ceiling, columns, and doorways in layered botanical and figural relief. The effect in July afternoon light is overwhelming in the way that genuinely great decorative art is — you look up and cannot quite believe the quantity of skilled human labour that went into making one ceiling in one room in a palace in the middle of Latvia.

The White Hall is its formal counterweight: white plaster stucco without the gilding, all elegance and proportion. The ducal private apartments are smaller and more intimate — bedroom, dressing rooms, cabinet rooms in the Rococo style, with original 18th-century wallpaper in some sections.

The degradation of the Soviet period is part of the story. Rundāle was used as an agricultural school, a granary, and a hospital at different points in the 20th century. Restoration began in 1972 under Jānis Ozoliņš, who dedicated his career to it. The restoration is ongoing; some rooms remain unrestored, and the palace presents both the finished splendour and the ongoing work as two honest aspects of the same project.

The Rose Garden

The formal French garden was designed to complement the palace’s southern facade. In high summer (late June through August), the rose parterre is in bloom — several thousand rose plants in geometric patterns, recreated from the 18th-century plans. This is not merely decorative: the garden is the palace’s second architectural argument, and in August it is extraordinary.

The garden extends beyond the formal parterre into an English landscape section at the far end. The full walk from palace to the far end of the garden and back is about 2 km.

Getting there from Riga

Rundāle is 75 km south of Riga, in the Zemgale region. By car: under 1 hour on the A7 motorway toward Bauska, then local road to Pilsrundāle. By public bus: from Riga’s Autoosta to Bauska (frequent service, €4-6, 1 hour), then a separate bus or taxi to the palace (15 km, around €15 by taxi). The palace is not walkable from Bauska centre.

Most visitors combine Rundāle with Bauska Castle (15 km) and/or the Hill of Crosses in Lithuania (2.5 hours south) for a longer day. If you are not driving, a guided tour from Riga is genuinely the practical option.

From Riga: Rundāle Palace and Bauska Castle round-trip tour From Riga: day trip to Hill of Crosses, Rundāle Palace and Bauska

Practical visit information (2026)

• Tickets: €12 adults, reduced rates for students and seniors. Children under 7 free.
• Opening hours: daily 10am–6pm (May–October), reduced hours November–April
• Rose Garden: included with palace ticket
• Cafe: basic on-site cafe in the courtyard; Bauska has better restaurant options
• Audio guide: available in English (€3), worth it for the state room detail
• Photography: permitted throughout, including tripods in the garden
• Accessibility: ground floor accessible, upper floors via stairs only

Versailles comparison: the honest summary

	Versailles	Rundāle
Architect	Jules Hardouin-Mansart (with others)	Bartolomeo Rastrelli
Built	1661–1710	1736–1768
Ticket (2026)	€21+	€12
Peak summer visitors/day	20,000+	~400-600
Garden	800 hectares	10 hectares
Room quality	Exceptional	Exceptional (different style)
Historical context	French absolutism	Baltic/Russian baroque

Rundāle is not Versailles in scale. The grounds are smaller, the number of rooms is fewer, the historical weight is different. But the quality of the surviving Rococo interiors is comparable. And the experience of walking through them without crowds, without urgency, without a tour group blocking every doorway, has no equivalent at the French original.

See the Rundāle Palace visiting guide and the Rundāle destination page for the full visit planning information.