If you wish to start your pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, start at Châtelet and the Tour Saint-Jacques in Paris. Or skip the pilgrimage and let MagmaCultura enable you uncover the fabulous historical past of the tower and its makes use of via the centuries. A specialised information leads you to one of the crucial stunning, panoramic views of Paris! Alongside the journey up 300 steps, additionally, you will go to a room with tower ornament fragments and a meteorology room that was in use till 2000.
Ticketing
MagmaCultura works with the Metropolis of Paris for the ticketing and guided excursions. The Tower is open to guests each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from the second weekend in June till the second weekend in November, from 10 a.m. to six p.m. For group visits, faculty visits or visits in languages apart from these supplied on-line, write to contact@toursaintjacques.fr. For the English tour at 1 p.m., use the contact e-mail handle to request particular dates and instances. In September, October and November a minimal of two per weekend are deliberate relying on the supply of the guides. The French excursions run each hour between 10 a.m. and 6 pm.
To make certain of going up within the tower, reservations needs to be made on-line www.toursaintjacques.fr. Tickets are for timed entry. There’s a ticket kiosk on the foot of the Tour Saint-Jacques. Full worth is 12 euros and diminished worth is 10 euros. The diminished worth (for guests underneath 18 and college students) consists of admission and the guided tour. The tour lasts one hour. Entry restrictions: Folks affected by claustrophobia and vertigo. Folks with strolling difficulties or coronary heart issues, with visible, hearig or bodily disabilities. You should be over 10 years previous.
MagmaCultura company’s tour retraces the historical past of this eleventh century vestige on the Proper Financial institution (Rive Droite). The previous bell tower of the Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie church has dominated the panorama of the Proper Financial institution of the Seine for 5 centuries. The church was bought in the course of the French Revolution and solely the tower stays. Previous to the Metropolis of Paris’s buy of the tower in 1836, it was a bomb-making facility. The town turned it into a decorative tower surrounded by a backyard, which stays at the moment.
Extra info from the Metropolis of Paris
Metropolis of Paris occasions Tour Saint-Jacques
Metropolis of Paris Uncover the view from the Tour Saint-Jacques
A Little Historical past Earlier than You Go
I might extremely advocate studying the historical past of the realm earlier than you’re taking the tour. Learn concerning the Grand Châtelet and Grand Boucherie (in French so wants a translation). Due to the odor, this space was exterior the town partitions. The butchers and fish mongers labored and cleaned and bought the meat and fish. The Seine was so shut they may conveniently jettison the carcasses and innards to drift away. This space was so filthy and unhygienic! What a distinction a few centuries makes.
The church, Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, initially completed in 1523, was dismantled stone-by-stone in 1793 and solely the clock tower was allowed to stay. The tower was saved when a non-public particular person persuaded the revolutionaries to avoid wasting this distinctive piece of their heritage and historical past. They agreed so long as it was transferred into secular arms and out of the church’s possession.
The Metropolis of Paris purchased and restored the tower of the previous church, Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, in 1836. It was renovated in 1858 to not appear like a church bell tower. The tower survived the Haussmannien interval and have become an decoration alongside the general public thoroughfare of rue de Rivoli.
Eager to have inexperienced areas as in London, a park was made across the tower and a dealing with road was named in honor of Queen Victoria coinciding along with her Paris go to. The tower of Saint-Jacques was used as a meteorological observatory from 1895 to 2000. For anybody that visited Paris after 2001, you’ll have seen the tower engulfed in scaffolding. The renovations have been so in depth to match stone fragments and reinforce the inspiration that work couldn’t start till 2006 and lasted till its reopening in 2013.
