There are many options for lodging in Versailles. The advantage of the Novotel is that it has an underground car park where the motorcycle can be safely stored. The hotel is easily accessible from the Autoroute de Normandie (A13).
You leave the city along the Forêt Domaniale de Versailles.

The Buc aqueduct served to divert the water collected on the Saclay Plateau in the south of Versailles to the water features in the Versailles Park, thus improving the water supply of the Palace Park.
The above-ground structure has a length of 580 m between the northern and southern ends. It has 19 round arches 9 m wide and up to 21 m high. The water flows in a channel 1 m wide and 1.9 m deep, covered with stone slabs. The aqueduct was built at the insistence of Louis XIV in the years 1684 to 1686. At first attempts were made to cross the valley with a culvert, but the pipes could not withstand the water pressure. Therefore, the valley floor was filled with an earthen dam and the aqueduct was built on it.
Since 1952, the Buc aqueduct has been classified as a historic monument. For those who want to take photos, it is best to park in the parking lot at the beginning.

In Yvelines, at the entrance of the town of Buc, a Mirage III on the ground has regained its shine thanks to the selflessness of enthusiasts. Offered by Dassault Aviation in the early 2000s, the Mirage III R 306, stationed in the town of Buc, is experiencing a second, if not a third, youth. The aircraft left the factory in 1963 and served until the early 1980s. It continued on its way to the Flight Test Centre-Orge (in Essonne) until the mid 1990s. Its career ended as a service aircraft, before joining a few years later it was offered to the city of Buc. Since then, it has been installed 'peacefully' 50 meters from the old gate of the Louis-Blériot Aéroparc. This flagship of the French Army and Dassault Aviation can now be seen in its original livery.

If you want to refuel, you can go to the gas station at the Intermarché.
You continue your way through an open landscape that gives way to the forest of Port-Royal a little further. Sheltered in the Yvette Valley, you pass through the Saint-Rémy Nature Reserve which consists of a mosaic of afforestation, meadows, ponds and marshes.
The landscape is always very varied. The roads are also always in excellent condition, which makes driving here very pleasant.

The Château de Celle-les-Bordes was built between 1607 and 1614, twenty years before the construction - a few miles away - of Louis XIII's first hunting lodge in Versailles. Located in the park of the upper valley of Chevreuse in the forest of Rambouillet, famous for its royal yachts, it belonged to the famous Duchess of Uzès (1847-1933). The castle thus experienced its heyday in the 19th century when, owned by the Duchess, it housed an entire hunting team consisting of 60 dogs and horses.
The castle has exceptional French and Italian furniture from the Renaissance and 17th century, with collections of prestigious objects from antiquity to the classical period. These include tapestries, Flemish paintings, pottery (majolica, Nevers), bronze and marble (mosaics), some of which are worthy of the greatest museums. Part English, part French, the park offers views of the countryside and the surrounding forest with its hundreds of years old trees.
It is an inhabited castle that can only be visited with a guided tour from the owner.

Just before Cernay-la-Ville you make a jump to the abbey of Vaux-de-Cernay. This abbey was founded in 1118 and has remained largely intact. The beautiful building now serves as a hotel with restaurant. You can spend the night there and enjoy the peaceful surroundings. In addition, the abbey is open to the public on weekends and holidays. You can then take a guided tour and learn all about the history of the abbey. After the visit, return and turn left at the T-junction. A little further you come to the 'Petit moulin des Vaux-de-Cernay'. Formerly called the Hotton Mill, this small mill dates back to 1207 when the monks of the abbey were given a tenth of the 'molendino d'Auton'. In 1586 the mill was rebuilt after extensive work, restored as a 'well-formed rotary working mill making wheat flour'. After the revolution, the small mill like the abbey of Vaux-de-Cernay was sold as a national asset. After the disappearance of the milling activity in the middle of the 19th century, the mill was transformed into an inn, much appreciated by artists and Parisian Sunday walkers.
The site of Vaux-de-Cernay is a geological exception in Île-de-France with a remarkable sandstone chaos. This rural and atypical landscape is the legacy of several million years ... More than 200 species of flowering plants represent 15% of the flora of Île-de-France.

The Domaine de Dampierre-en-Yvelines is a beautiful castle located in the valley of Chevreuse. It was built in 1675 by the architect of Versailles Jules Hardouin-Mansart in an impressive French style with classical facades. The castle is surrounded by a moat and during a visit you can admire the many rooms. Kings Louis XIV and Louis XV stayed there. From 1663 to 2018 it was owned by the Albert de Luynes family. The castle was classified as a historic monument in 1928.
The English-style park, designed by Le Nôtre, is located behind the island and is home to a beautiful 18th-century pavilion, modeled on Louis XV's French pavilion in Trianon.
This park, planted with a collection of rhododendrons, camellias and bulbs, where the moats bring freshness under the oaks, is equipped with picnic tables and areas where you can relax in the shade of the hundred-year-old trees.

Chevreuse is a pretty village located in the heart of the Parc Naturel Régional de la Haute Vallée de Chevreuse. The city was founded in the tenth century and you can enjoy cute streets, stone bridges and picturesque houses.
You should also definitely take a look at the Château de la Madeleine. The castle is located on the heights of Chevreuse and offers a beautiful panorama over the Yvette valley. The fortified castle was built between the 11th and 14th centuries. The building dominates the Yvette Valley with its majestic stature made up of its rectangular keep and its ramparts with towers. Archaeology, history and environment come together beautifully here.
In the cellars of the castle, a 'Castle Life' exhibition lets you relive the rich and eventful history of this medieval fortress. You will discover that he witnessed, among other things, the Hundred Years War but also the religious wars. Several gentlemen succeeded each other and lived there ... The famous author Jean Racine supervised the work in 1661.
The Château de la Madeleine was included in the Supplementary Inventory of Historic Monuments in 1948. The castle tower is one of the best preserved in Île-de-France.

The abbey of the same name is located in the Forêt Domanial de Port-Royal. Port-Royal was a Cistercian monastery in the commune of Magny-les-Hameaux. Built in 1204, the monastery is located in a 'Porrois' - which is an old French word for rough, swampy terrain. The corruption to Port Royal was to make the place, which had nothing royal, sound like that. The monastery was the basis of several important developments in Jansenism. Between 1710 and the French Revolution, the site remained the property of the Monastery of Port-Royal de Paris. After the confiscation of the goods of the clergy, it was sold as a national property in 1791. The farm and house were sold to a farmer. This part of the monastery became state property in 1951. The other part, where the ruins of the abbey are located, was sold to a Madame Desprez, who had ties to Jansenists. It remained the property of this family until 1828, when the 'Boîte a Perrette', who managed the Jansenists' funds, bought it with Louis Silvy, a Jansenist. He established schools there that provided free education to the children of the region. These schools would continue to exist until 1867. Afterwards, the Société de Port-Royal bought the grounds again and managed them until 2004, when they were entrusted to the state, under the authority of the Minister of Culture. As a result, the site is currently fully accessible to visitors.

In Restaurant 'Harmony' in Mesnil-Saint-Denis you can enjoy a nice meal. The service is fast and friendly. The traditional French cuisine is very good and of high quality. There is also a spacious parking lot.

The Forêt domaniale de Rambouillet takes you to the village of the same name. The village is best known for its Château de Rambouillet. Dating back to the 14th century, the castle served as the summer home for the presidents of France from 1896 to 2009. It is a fairytale castle that you can admire inside and out. Around the castle you will find a large French garden with ponds and flowers, where you can enjoy a walk.
The castle is located in the middle of a forest of more than 20,000 hectares and initially had a military function. The castle wall and keep from the 14th century have been preserved, despite the many changes ordered by the successive owners. Around the castle is a park, with canals and ponds. This is a hunting ground that seduced many nobility, for example Francis I, who died there, and Charles X, who signed his abdication there. In the 17th century it was very expensively redecorated by the Marquis de Rambouillet and his daughter, Julie d'Angennes. The castle of Rambouillet still has the function of official residence, which Louis XVI and also Napoleon had given it.
The castle was the site of the first G6 meeting in 1975, at the initiative of President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Six countries took part: Germany (Helmut Schmidt), the United States (Gerald Ford), France, Italy (Aldo Moro), Japan (Takeo Miki) and the United Kingdom (Harold Wilson). Since then, the castle regularly receives foreign heads of state visiting France.

The charming medieval town of Montfort-l'Amaury allows visitors to discover its heritage: the Saint-Pierre church with its 37 beautiful stained glass windows from the 16th century; the old mass grave of the cemetery, with the carved gate in Flamboyant Gothic style and the arched corridors; the remains of the ramparts and the medieval fortress tower.
The Maurice Ravel Museum can also be visited here, housed in the house that was inhabited by this famous composer for more than fifty years.
Might be the time to take a coffee break at the Café de la Poste, located on a tree-lined square where you can easily park your bike.

The landscape is now much more open. The next 20 km you get beautiful views of this region with meadows and agricultural land. Past Maurepas and Elancourt it gets a bit busier again.

The 'France miniature' park introduces you to 117 French monuments and sites, reproduced in miniature, in 1/30 scale. The five-hectare park is laid out in the shape of the map of France with basins on the locations of the seas and oceans bordering France. The island of Corsica is not missing either. The area is crossed by numerous miniature railways on which trains consist of models that mimic SNCF equipment (TGV, Corail trains, etc.). The park is open from April to October.

In Trappes you make a small loop through the 'Cité ouvrière des dents de Scie'. This working-class town consists of 40 adjacent pavilions, built from 1926 to 1931. The town, intended for the railway workers of the State Railways, is located near the train station of Trappes, one of the most important railway centers in France. The pavilions, each with its own garden, are arranged at 45° on either side of a public passageway (Avenue Marceau), giving the town the name 'Les Dents de Scie'. They are built in bricks, covered with coated plates. Three houses destroyed during the bombings of the last war have been rebuilt in reinforced concrete.

You drive around the leisure park 'Base de Loisirs de Saint-Quentin' to the fortress of Saint-Cyr.
Construction of the Fort started in 1875 and the army moved there in 1879. With an area of 22 ha it should allow surveillance and control to the south west of the plateau.
In the event of a conflict, the reserves give her an autonomy of three months for food and six months for water. During the First World War, the Fort de Saint-Cyr was of great importance as the first defense of the capital. After the war and until 1939, the building was assigned to the military meteorological service and served as a storage place for explosives and ammunition. Subsequently, in 1944, a civilian school of meteorology was established there. Assigned to the Ministry of Culture since 1982, the building now houses the photographic archive funds.

About three kilometers further you come to the Parc de Versailles with its beautiful castle. The castle was inhabited by the famous King Louis XIV and is therefore very luxurious and extravagant. The castle is one of the largest in the world and one of the most important sights of France. The castle has 226 houses and 550 apartments and hundreds of friends and employees of Louis XIV lived there. Part of the castle is open to the public, so you can get acquainted with the special lifestyle of the kings and queens of the Ancien Regime. One of the highlights is the special hall of mirrors. In this beautiful room the peace treaty of Versailles was written in 1919 that put an end to the First World War. Not only the castle, but also the gardens are world famous. You can walk around for hours and be amazed by ponds, fountains, statues, pavilions and flower beds. It is best to plan a separate day for a visit to the castle of Versailles.

With the magnificent view of the Palace of Versailles you end this ride in beauty. After all, you are now only a couple of kilometers away from your hotel.