Tested for you: a visit to the longest crypt in Europe by candlelight in Chartres Cathedral

After two years of absence due to the coronavirus crisis, C’Chartres Tourisme is once again offering its nocturnal guided tours of the crypt of the cathedral of Chartres (Eure-et-Loir) by candlelight.

Freshness and darkness

These excursions are told by the guide Gilles Fresson, who without any exaggeration, lives the moment with a capital V. He also takes care of walks, again organized by Chartres Tourism during the summer of 2022.

The entrance is from the north side of the cathedral, through a door, which passes every other day of the year for an illustrious stranger. So it’s time to dive into the bowels of the UNESCO World Heritage monument, whose bell was commissioned in March 1521, and has been ringing almost continuously ever since. The first impression is that of an extremely palpable change in temperature. It is almost cold in the crypt, especially compared to the scorching climate that prevails a few meters above.

Immersed in complete darknesslit only by new generation candlelight for visitors, the crypt is the longest in Europe, with its 250 meters at the counter. The purpose of the visit is to put yourself in the place of “pilgrims from the Middle Ages”, accompanied by songs from the 11th century sung aloud by Gilles Fresson all along the route.

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This crypt, the only one in Europe not to count the deceased within it, then accommodates Marie : at the time of Fulbert, this floor was devoted to the veneration of relics, including that of Mary before giving birth, perhaps in one of the oldest sanctuaries dedicated to Mary in the West.

1,000 years on the clock

Visitors pass under the almost millenary vaults imagined by Fulbert and built in 1024, traces of the presence of French and English kings during the periods of crusades or next to the 7 chapels which populate the bottom of the crypt, and still have the same function as 1000 years ago.

Some of the cross walls, dated from the 5th to the 9th century, whose materials are close to marble, have some 3,000 tons of the building on their shoulders, others are adorned with almost intact reproductive paintings of Iraqi and Iranian fabrics before the great fire of 1134.

The visit brings you back to the surface, knowing that the building matters 160 meters of vertical drop between its lowest point, the bottom of the well, and its highest point, logically, the tip.

Up there, the cathedral, usually lit by the sun, is totally plunged into darkness and silence. An absolute silence which makes it possible to observe the eight seconds of sound reverberation at the time of the vocalizations of Gilles Fresson, who seem never to want to stop. In any case, the vaults of the cathedral, thought for the sung prayers, want to keep them as long as possible.

Vaults located 37 meters above the ground, a world record at the time of their construction, all within a building supposed to give a “taste of another world, doors to the beyond” according to the evening guide. Just that.