Reims Cathedral

Reims Cathedral tickets: which one to buy

The cathedral is free to enter. The ticket is for the towers, climbed on a guided visit of about an hour up 250 steps to the level of the gallery of kings and out onto the roof, with a view over the Champagne plain; it runs from spring to autumn only and in small groups, so book ahead. A combined ticket covers the towers and the Palace of Tau next door, the archbishop's palace that holds the original sculptures taken off the facade and the coronation regalia, which is the better half of the pairing.

Audio guides are rented in the cathedral. Guided tours from Paris pair Reims with a champagne house and cost many times the entry; the city is forty-five minutes from Paris by fast train and easy to do alone. The Palace of Tau closes on Mondays out of season, which catches out visitors who plan both on the same day.

Visiting Reims Cathedral: what to see

Clovis was baptised in a church on this site around 496, and from 1027 to 1825 almost every king of France was crowned here, which made the cathedral the political centre of the kingdom. The present building was begun in 1211 after a fire and finished in the fourteenth century, and its west front carries more than 2,300 figures, including the Smiling Angel that became the emblem of the city. German shelling in 1914 set the timber roof alight and the lead ran molten from the gargoyles;

the restoration, paid for largely by the Rockefeller family, took until 1938. Chagall designed three windows in the axial chapel in 1974, deep blue and quite unlike anything else in the building. Joan of Arc stood beside Charles VII at his coronation here in 1429 and her statue is outside. The gallery of kings across the west front carries 56 statues of the French monarchs, each about four metres high, and the originals of the most damaged are in the palace museum.

Reims Cathedral opening hours and the best time to go

Open daily from early morning to evening, closing to visitors during services. The tower visits run from around April to September at fixed times. The west front faces slightly north of west and takes the light in the late afternoon, which is also when the sound and light show is projected onto it on summer evenings, free to watch from the square. Reims is cold in winter and the cathedral is unheated. Dress modestly.

Photography without flash is allowed. Allow an hour for the cathedral, two and a half with the towers and the Palace of Tau. The basilica of Saint-Remi, with the tomb of the bishop who baptised Clovis, is a twenty-minute walk south and is part of the same World Heritage listing. Champagne houses in the city, Taittinger and Veuve Clicquot among them, run tours that must be booked separately and fill the rest of a day.