Notre Dame will reopen to the public starting next December 8 after five years of renovation works due to the devastating fire in April 2019 that considerably damaged one of the most emblematic monuments in the world and symbol of Paris.
Specifically, on the previous day, the December 7there will be held a ceremonial act in the cathedralchaired by the Archbishop of Paris, in the presence of the French President, Emmanuel Macron, who will address a large number of heads of State and Government, officials, patrons, jointly invited by the State and the diocese, among others.
Then, on December 8, an eight-day reopening of the cathedral will begin, allowing access to Paris faithful and visitors until 10 p.m. Finally, Notre Dame will get back to normal starting December 16.
The free reservations To access the monument they will be done through an ‘online’ platform, in order to limit the waiting time at the entrance of the cathedral. They will be available in early December.
Thus, individual visitors will be able to reserve a time slot the day before, the day before or the same day. However, there will still be a queue on the esplanade without a reservation.
According to a statement from the monument, about 40,000 pilgrimsamong them 8,000 schoolchildren, already have signed up in the cathedral pilgrimage service. The visit to Notre Dame consists of a 30-minute silent tour around the cathedral, with five stations.
For its part, the registration of cultural groups will begin in March 2025 on a platform to coordinate the entries of groups, which will be received at the cathedral starting June 9 of next year.
Before the fire, Notre Dame was the most visited monument in France with 14 million visitors in 2018 and one of the first in the world.
According to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), this cathedral led world visits ahead of others such as the Great Wall of China (9 million tourists), the Sydney Opera House (7.5 million), the Eiffel Tower (7 million) , the Lincoln Memorial in Washington (6 million) or the Colosseum in Rome (5 million).
The Government proposes charging entry
On the other hand, in a recent interview with ‘Le Figaro’, the Minister of Culture of France, Rachida Dati, proposed that the entrance to Notre Dame after the reopening stop being free for tourists, so that those who want to access the interior pay a “symbolic fee” of five euros.
Furthermore, Dati explained in an interview with ‘Le Figaro’ that this tax would allow us to raise around 75 million euros per year, enough to “save all the churches in Paris and France”, within the ideas being considered for the emblematic temple. after reopening in December.
In response, the president of the metropolitan region of Paris, Valérie Pecresse, considered it a “very good idea”, although she proposed limiting the payment to “tourists” and not to the “faithful” who come to pray, which led Dati to clarify on social networks that “the trades must of course continue to be freely accessible.”
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