Notre-Dame Visitor question

[itsanita]

From what I can see online, there are 2 'tours' of Notre-Dame. A 35 minute audio tour available all day or a 1 1/2 hour tour, available only at certain times on certain days. In your opinion, is the longer one worth trying to schedule the day around the tour?

thanks for your help

[Pet Nit Noy]

From what I can see online, there are 2 'tours' of Notre-Dame. A 35 minute audio tour available all day or a 1 1/2 hour tour, available only at certain times on certain days. In your opinion, is the longer one worth trying to schedule the day around the tour?

thanks for your help

 

You won't find too many people who have done both types of tours but I'll share my feelings about the audio guide tour. We found the information to be quite interesting but using the guide was very frustrating. You'll be given a listening device and a map of the cathedral which numbers on the diagram. You'll be expected to key in the numbers when you're in the correct position. Unfortunately, we found that the diagram wasn't very precise. Where several numbers are clustered together on the map, we were particularly frustrated. Standing where we believed we should be standing, we sometimes heard commentary that was actually about a different location. There were even one or two numbers for which we never found the right spot to stand.

 

In addition, if you take too long between listening positions, the device needs to be "awakened" before keying in the next number. I eventually stumbled on the correct button to push before inputting the commentary number, but until then, I kept getting the introduction to the cathedral rather than the specific location talk.

 

With my warnings and low expectations, you may be satisfied with the audio guide experience. We enjoyed the listening stations that worked smoothly, but we definitely didn't hear 100% of the commentary. This is not to say you should take the schedule tour guided by a human!

 

Another day, when we visited Chartres, we bought a book written by the premier expert on the cathedral, Malcolm Miller. We used his photographs and explanation to understand what we were seeing. Even though that experience took a bit of trial and error, it was less frustrating than the audio guides in Notre Dame.

Edited June 25, 2014 by Pet Nit Noy

[cberge]

If Notre Dame is important to you then do the person guided tour if you can if not try the audio tour(with the limits set forth in the above post),but another way is to print out some info on ND and a small map and just do it on your own.

[CintiPam]

Rick Steves' Paris guidebook offers excellent walking tours and site tours, including Notre Dame.