Two different experiences coexist under the same roof at Chartres, and that is the first useful fact for planning the visit: you walk the nave for free, every day, with no ticket and no closing time, while the Treasury, the room that holds the relics and liturgical objects, charges separately and keeps its own hours.
A little over an hour by train from Paris, Chartres is France’s best-preserved Gothic cathedral: it came through the nineteenth century and the two world wars with almost no damage, and its thirteenth-century windows are for the most part the original glass, not reconstructions. Since 2009 a restoration of the interior has been under way, running until 2030, recovering the walls’ original colour scheme, very light today: in some areas you will still find scaffolding, but the cathedral stays open throughout the works.
I will take you through the windows and the labyrinth, tell you when the Treasury is worth paying for, and close with the right train to catch to get there.
Why do the two spires on this facade not look alike at all, as if they belonged to two different churches?
Off we go!
Two spires, two centuries apart
Look closely at the facade before you go in: the two bell towers are not twins, and it is not a design flaw. The one on the right, plainer and more pointed, is Romanesque and dates from the mid-twelfth century, begun around 1144: it is the oldest part of the facade, having survived the fire that destroyed almost everything else of the cathedral in 1194. The one on the left, taller and covered in flamboyant Gothic decoration, was rebuilt in the sixteenth century after lightning had damaged its original top.
The result is a facade that carries its own history written on its two towers: a surviving Romanesque church and a Gothic one built on top, rebuilt, and never truly brought into harmony with the other. It is the first sign that here, more than elsewhere, every part of the building tells a different century.
The Belle Verrière, which survived the 1194 fire
Why does the blue of this window look more intense than all the others?
Among the cathedral’s more than a hundred windows, almost all from the thirteenth century, one is older than all the rest: Notre-Dame de la Belle Verrière, the window with the Virgin enthroned and the Child on a blue ground, surrounded by censer-bearing angels. It is one of the few windows to have survived the 1194 fire, which destroyed most of the earlier Romanesque cathedral: that is why the blue of its background, known not by chance as “Chartres blue”, is darker and more intense than that of the windows remade after the fire.
Below the main figure, look at the registers with the smaller scenes: they tell episodes from the life of Christ, in a sequence meant to be read from bottom to top, like a vertical comic strip for an audience that mostly could not read.
The labyrinth you can walk on Fridays
On the floor of the nave, almost always hidden under the chairs, is a circular labyrinth with a two-hundred-and-sixty-one-metre path, laid out in the thirteenth century and still intact. It does not lead to a hidden centre: it is a single path with no forks, which medieval pilgrims walked on their knees as a symbolic substitute for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
From Lent until All Saints’ Day, every Friday from 10:30 to 16:30, the cathedral removes the chairs and leaves the labyrinth uncovered: it is the only day, and only in that part of the year, when you can see it in full and walk it from the entrance to the centre, as in the photograph below. The one Friday that is skipped is Good Friday, when the labyrinth stays covered all day. Outside that season, or on other days of the week, you will still find it, but partly covered by the pews.
The crypt and the chapel of Saint-Fulbert
Why do you find intact Romanesque chapels under a Gothic cathedral?
Beneath the nave stretches one of the largest crypts in France, built in the eleventh century by bishop Fulbert after a fire that predates the one of 1194. You can only enter with a paid guided tour, separate from the Treasury ticket, and it takes you through Romanesque chapels that the Gothic cathedral simply absorbed, without destroying them, when it was rebuilt above.
The chapel of Saint-Fulbert, the one shown below, still holds its coloured windows and a small altar: it is the point where you understand best that Chartres is not a single building, but the overlap of several cathedrals built over the centuries, one on top of the other.
How to get there from Paris
Take an SNCF or OUIGO train from Gare Montparnasse: the journey takes between an hour and an hour and a quarter, with around thirty departures a day, so you do not need to book weeks ahead. There is no direct RER to Chartres, so if you see an offer promising one, check it carefully: it probably still starts from Montparnasse with a regional train.
Practical information
Details checked on 30 September 2026 on the official website of Chartres Cathedral. Prices and opening hours change: check again before you travel.
Nave. Entry to the nave and transept is free, every day of the year, from 8:30 to 19:30, with last access at 19:15. Movement stops during Masses and liturgical services. Treasury. Full price costs 7 euros, reduced 5.50 euros for groups with a professional tour guide or with a ticket for the Château de Châteaudun. It opens from 10:00 to 12:45 and 14:00 to 17:00 from 5 September to 30 April, and from 10:00 to 12:45 and 14:00 to 18:00 from 2 May to 4 September. It closes Sunday mornings, 1 January, 1 May, 25 May and 25 December. Labyrinth. It is seen uncovered every Friday from 10:30 to 16:30, but only from Lent to All Saints’ Day (1 November), and on Good Friday it stays covered all day; outside this period, and on other days of the week, it stays partly covered by the chairs. Warning: the cathedral’s own site contradicts itself on the closing time, because the labyrinth page gives 16:45 and the calendar for the individual Friday gives 16:30: count on 16:30 and check the calendar for your date. Crypt. It can only be visited with a paid guided tour, by reservation, separate from the Treasury ticket. Restoration. The interior has been under restoration since 2009 and works continue until 2030: the cathedral stays open, with scaffolding visible in some areas. Getting there. The train from Gare Montparnasse takes between an hour and an hour and a quarter, with no direct RER link. How much time it needs. The nave alone needs at least three quarters of an hour; with the Treasury and the crypt, allow two hours.
Before you go
With half a day available, give priority to the nave and the Belle Verrière, which cost you nothing: add the Treasury and the crypt only if your return train allows it. If you are going specifically for the labyrinth, check before you leave that it is a Friday and that you are between Lent and All Saints’ Day, or you risk finding it covered by the chairs.
Chartres is the furthest of this season’s three day trips: the other two take less time to reach, and both have an urgent reason to come first. At Versailles the restoration of the Hall of Mirrors has just finished; at Giverny Monet’s garden closes on 1 November 2026.
Photographs: facade by Stephen HENRY, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons; window by Oliver Mitchell, CC BY-SA 3.0; labyrinth by Patrick (“morio60”), CC BY-SA 2.0; crypt by Le Passant, CC BY-SA 4.0.
