PARIS-
Visitors to Versailles now have access to attractions related to Marie-Antoinette that are newly restored or have not previously been open to the public.
Versailles is selling separate tickets to the Marie-Antoinette estate for $11.30 in addition to the general entrance fee of $10.
One highlight of the new Versailles ticket is entrance to a small but luxurious theater that the drama-loving queen had built. It has been open to visitors only sporadically.
Another feature is the English Garden, newly restored after the storms that devastated Versailles and much of Europe in December 1999. The Petit Trianon, a mini-chateau that Louis XVI offered Marie-Antoinette as a wedding present, is also part of the tour for the next few months, before the building closes in November for a renovation expected to last about two years.
As part of Marie-Antoinette mania, the chateau is also selling a perfume based on one of the queen's fragrances. It was re-created by Francis Kurkdjian, who has designed scents for Christian Dior, Giorgio Armani and Guerlain.
Scented with hints of rose, iris, jasmine, tuberose and orange blossom, the perfume comes with a price tag fit for a king: $10,000 for a prestige version, or a standard version for $440.
Marie-Antoinette's private estate on Versailles' grounds offered the Austrian-born queen and her children respite from the etiquette of the French court. She was brought to Versailles to be Louis XVI's bride as a teenager, and she fled the chateau with her family during the French Revolution. In 1793 she was tried and guillotined.
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