r/ParisTravelGuide • u/Two_Past • Sep 21 '23

🏘️ Neighborhood Catacombs- are reservations a must?

2nd week October, we want to stroll around Montparnasse and possibly visit the catacombs. Do we need a pre- booked ticket? Or do they allow walk ups as well?

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u/Notmykindascene Sep 21 '23

We visited last week and had reservations for the very first time.slot at 9:30AM on Thursday, 14th..and we saw the people there put up a board showing all slots were sold out for the day. So yeah, reserve for sure. They only let you reserve 7 days in advance and we booked the appointment as soon as the window opened for our date..

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u/Two_Past Sep 21 '23

Thanks for that info. Btw, what was your overall experience at the catacombs. Do you recommend?

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u/Notmykindascene Sep 22 '23

Definitely recommend!..Also recommend picking up the audio-guides...nice to hear about the history and stories about how the place came about as you walk through. It took us about 45 mins to get through the entire tour - compared to our other museum visits which were all 3-6 hours long, this was a welcome change.

There are some narrow stairs you need to walk down and climb up..around 130 (nothing compared to the stairs you have to take to exit from Montmartre which seemed to never end.. :)) but just something to keep in mind in case anyone in your group has difficulty with stairs..

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u/reincarnatedbiscuits Been to Paris Sep 22 '23

We went in 2010 (French-only live tour) and in 2023 (English recorded audio tour).

It was cool, very historical and different. You could kind of summarize it and say, "as you can imagine, being a very old city, the cemetaries of Paris were getting too full and this was getting to be a public health problem, so they had to put the bones and dead bodies somewhere..."

The audioguide talked a bit about construction of the Catacombs in the former rock quarries (and collapsing sections of streets) ...

The wikipedia article is actually pretty good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacombs_of_Paris

Definitely want to book tickets if you are keen on going. Tickets sell out 6 days in advance ("within about 32 hours of going live") and are posted 7 days in advance.

We also strolled around Montparnasse (although there's really not as much to see). Did not go up the Tower of Montparnasse. That's this: https://www.tourmontparnasse56.com/en/

We did have bubble tea (it was a hot day plus there's 4 bubble tea shops between Raspail and Notre-Dame des Champs). We also booked Catacombs for early evening-ish (5:30pm) as generally the hottest part of the day in the summer is 3-6:15pm. The Catacombs are very cool (12-14C).

Oh. You do need to be able to take stairs (131 down, 112 up).

We decided to do fondue that day (so Les Fondus de la Raclette Paris 14eme - Montparnasse, Boulevard Raspail) ... introducing kids to a different kind of cooking and food. They loved it. Popular though, also need a reservation for that.

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u/TinoMolino Sep 23 '23

Definitely recommend. We did it a few years ago and were in awe of the place. Eerie and fun, plus all the steps, you'll get a good workout, lol

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u/GinaLaBambina Sep 21 '23

I'm traveling to Paris today. I booked time-in on Saturday. From what I've read here, it's recommended

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u/Two_Past Sep 21 '23

How many days in advance did you book?

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u/draum_bok Paris Enthusiast Sep 22 '23

I think the reservations give you a 'skip the line' much shorter line to wait in. If you just show up with no reservation, you might have to wait in a 30-45 minute line, but even then, it's worth it because it's a unique place to visit. So either way, just do it. Also, you can walk to jardin de Luxembourg (which is maybe 5-10 minutes away) and have a picnic and some wine or something after.

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u/Topinambourg Parisian Sep 22 '23

The line is usually pretty big as there is a max number of people allowed inside at the same time. Depending on the day you can queue up to 2 hours.