About this site
basiliquedesaintdenis.com is an independent guide to visiting the Basilique de Saint-Denis, written by a local resident. It is neither the monument’s official website, nor that of the Centre des monuments nationaux which manages it, nor that of a tour operator. I do not sell any tickets.
Who writes here
My name is Solange Vaillant. I am 61 years old and have lived on rue Gabriel-Péri since 1989. I ran a bookshop in the city centre for many years, which mostly involved answering people’s questions, and I now volunteer for a local heritage association. I do my shopping at the market on Tuesdays and Fridays, place Jean-Jaurès, and I walk past the basilica every day.
This site was born out of frustration. The first is seeing visitors enter the nave, find it beautiful and empty, leave after ten minutes and go away without having seen a single gisant — because no one told them that the royal necropolis is behind it, and that it requires a ticket. The second is that people only come to Saint-Denis for the Stade de France. This city is home to the world’s largest collection of funerary sculpture from the 12th to the 16th century, just a hundred metres from a metro station.
What this site is, and what it is not
This is not the monument’s official website. The basilica is owned by the French state, managed by the Centre des monuments nationaux, and worship is provided by the diocese of Saint-Denis ; this is explained on the page dedicated to the owner. I do not speak on behalf of any of them. It is also not a tour operator : I do not organise anything, I do not guide anyone, and I do not sell any tickets.
What I do can be summed up in three things. I explain what can be seen without a ticket and what requires one, on what is free and the necropolis ticket. I describe what is inside, honestly, including the fact that the tombs were emptied in 1793 and that the bones have been mixed in an ossuary since 1817 — see the desecration and the crypt. And I compare five useful bookings around the visit, product by product, on the reviews page.
Practical details — opening times, free entry, access, duration — come from what the monument publishes and what I see on site. They change. If an opening time changes or a room closes, write to me and I will correct it. I check myself : I live a ten-minute walk away.
How the site is funded
Through affiliate links to GetYourGuide. If you book after clicking on a link or module on this site, they receive a small commission, without this changing what you pay. No one pays me directly, no operator reviews these pages, and I say when a booking is not worthwhile : the Paris Museum Pass is useless for those who only visit the basilica, and the best visit to the monument, the guided tour in French, is included in the ticket and earns me nothing at all. The details are in the affiliate disclosure.
To start, the complete guide fits on one page. If you are in a hurry, what to see in the order of the route is enough to miss nothing important.