Basilica of Saint-Sernin, Toulouse vs Toulouse Cathedral
Two churches in Toulouse. Basilica of Saint-Sernin, Toulouse has no online ticket listed; Toulouse Cathedral has no online ticket listed. The table and the two notes below put them side by side; the full pages have what to see, the ticket and the timing for each.
Saint-Sernin is free to walk into and stands ten minutes north of the main square of Toulouse, so the decision is only whether to take a guide and whether to pay the small charge for the crypt. Take both. The crypt holds the relic collection that made the church what it is, and without someone explaining the pilgrimage economy of the eleventh century the building reads as merely very large. Walking tours of the pink city pair it with the Jacobins church, which is the other essential stop and a complete contrast in materials and mood.
The Cathedral of Saint Stephen, Saint-Etienne, stands on a square in the old town of Toulouse, southern France, about fifteen minutes' walk from the Capitole square, and entry is free. It is the cathedral of Toulouse, but it is less visited than the city's great Romanesque basilica of Saint-Sernin or the Jacobins church, partly because of its strange, lopsided appearance, which is exactly what makes it interesting.
