Saint-Émilion Underground Tour

What to do there

6 things to do

1. 1

   Descend Into the Church They Carved From the Inside Out

   history Price: low

   WHERE: Book at the Tourist Office on Place des Créneaux (tel: 05 57 55 28 28), then meet your guide at Place de l'Eglise Monolithe — the sunken square at the bottom of the village, accessed via stone steps. Tour runs daily year-round; English tours available.

   WHAT: The moment you step inside, tilt your head back. Monks began this church by removing the ROOF FIRST — they carved downward through the limestone plateau, hollowing from the top while leaving the pillars and vaulted ceiling as part of the original living rock. The result: 38 metres long, 20 metres wide, 12 metres high, entirely underground, carved from a single block of limestone by hand in the early 12th century. It is the largest monolithic church in Europe. 15,000 cubic metres of rock were removed. By hand.

   HOW: Adult tickets are €15, €12 reduced and €8 for ages 6–17 (book at the Tourist Office — the tour sells out; book before 10am). Photography is not permitted — so you must experience this without your phone screen. When your guide says the church was built 'upside down,' ask them to explain. The answer changes how you understand every other church you've ever entered.

   BACKUP: If English tours are booked, written English translation is provided free on request. The underground is open every day — just book at least the morning of your visit.

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2. 2

   Touch the Stone Bed Where a Fugitive Monk Started a Wine Empire

   history Price: low

   WHERE: Inside the underground tour — the hermitage is the smallest, oldest, most loaded room in the complex. Your guide will bring you here before the main church.

   WHAT: In the 8th century, a monk named Émilion left Vannes in Brittany — he had served the count there as treasurer, and he'd had enough. He walked south until he found a limestone cliff and lived there alone. Tradition says he carved the bed, the table and the chair you see in the rock. They are still there. You can touch the stone slab where he is said to have slept. His reputation for sanctity drew pilgrims. The pilgrims drew monks. The monks planted vines on the limestone plateau above his cave. The limestone that sheltered a hermit gave its minerals to 800 years of wine. The town named itself after him. There is still an Émilion, and still a cave, and the wine still tastes of the stone.

   HOW: Tell your guide you want a moment alone here. Most guides will pause the group for this. Run your hand across the stone surface of the bed. Tradition makes it 1,300 years old. Ask: 'Where exactly was his head?'

   BACKUP: This is included in the standard tour (same €15 ticket). There is no separate access.

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3. 3

   Find the Frescoes That Survived Because of a Wine Barrel Maker

   history Price: low

   WHERE: The Trinity Chapel — included in the underground tour, same €15 ticket. Accessed through the catacombs sequence.

   WHAT: After the Revolution, the Trinity Chapel was sold as scrap. A wine barrel maker bought it and set up his workshop inside. He needed to curve the oak staves for barrels — so he burned wood on the chapel floor. For decades, smoke and soot coated the walls floor-to-ceiling. He didn't know he was doing something extraordinary. The soot covered the 14th-century frescoes. When restorers later cleaned the walls, the paintings emerged, 700 years after a medieval artist mixed those pigments. A barrel maker accidentally preserved masterpieces by making wine barrels. The wine and the art saved each other.

   HOW: When your guide shows the frescoes, look specifically at the colour saturation — this is what medieval church painting actually looked like before 700 years of candlelight and sunlight degraded everything else in Europe. Ask: 'What were the scenes?' The guide will explain the iconography.

   BACKUP: Also included in the standard tour. The catacombs just before this room show carved figures stretching toward a cupola of light — pause here too before moving to the chapel.

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4. 4

   Climb 196 Steps to the Edge of the Vineyard Sky

   adventure Free

   WHERE: The bell tower entrance is at Place du Clocher, at street level — look for the tower that rises directly above the underground church. Open daily (check for event closures at the Tourist Office).

   WHAT: You just descended into 12th-century darkness. Now climb back into the light — all the way up. 196 steps. The bell tower was built between the 12th and 15th centuries, 68 metres high, in stages — the architectural style shifts as you climb from Romanesque to Gothic. When you emerge at the top, the tiled medieval rooftops fall away in every direction and the Saint-Émilion vineyards stretch to the horizon. This is the first UNESCO-inscribed wine landscape in history — an inscribed property of 7,847 hectares with a 5,101-hectare buffer zone, with about 5,000 hectares of vines. You're standing over 1,700 years of continuous winemaking. The Romans tended these slopes. A Roman poet named Ausonius owned vineyards around Bordeaux, and some believe Château Ausone stands on the foundations of his villa. Ausone makes only about 2,000 cases a year and sells them for hundreds of euros a bottle. It's out there. Go at 5pm in summer: golden hour turns everything copper.

   HOW: The climb costs €2 per person, paid at the tourist office reception desk, where you collect the key; the tower takes a minimum of 2 people. Bell tower access is NOT included in the underground tour ticket. It takes about 10 minutes up. Go immediately after the underground tour exits — you'll emerge into the same square. The contrast between the cold, dark church and the warm panorama at the top is the whole experience in one movement.

   BACKUP: If the tower is closed for an event, the plateau above the village (rue de la Grande Muraille, 5-minute walk) gives a similar view over the vineyards for free.

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5. 5

   Drink Saint-Émilion at the Town's First Wine Bar

   wine Price: moderate

   WHERE: L'Envers du Décor, Rue du Clocher — a 3-minute walk from the bell tower. Saint-Émilion's first wine bar, open since 1987.

   WHAT: Here's what nobody tells you: since 2017 the bar has been owned by the Perse family — owners of Château Pavie, the estate at the centre of the disputed 2012 classification, and the separate 2021-2022 withdrawals in which three of the region's best-known châteaux (Ausone, Cheval Blanc, Angélus) quit the classification entirely, saying its criteria had strayed too far from the estate, its vineyards and its wine. Ask the sommelier what happened. They'll tell you everything.

   HOW: Order a glass of Saint-Émilion Grand Cru by the glass — ask for whatever the sommelier is excited about from the plateau limestone estates. Tell them you just came from the underground. Ask: 'What would a Jurat have drunk here in 1300?'

   BACKUP: If L'Envers du Décor is full, Sous la Robe (21 rue André Loiseau) is a quieter bar pouring wine and Champagne by the glass — similar selection, less scenery.

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6. 6

   Witness the Jurade Announce the Harvest from the King's Tower

   Optional

   adventure Free

   WHERE: Tour du Roy (King's Tower), rue du Couvent — the 13th-century keep standing on its own rock inside the walls. The ceremony happens the third Sunday of September each year.

   WHAT: On 8 July 1199, King John Lackland (yes, the villain of Robin Hood, yes, the one who sealed the Magna Carta 16 years later) signed the Charter of Falaise, giving the town its self-government. The Jurade is documented from 1234; today it is a brotherhood of 140 wine guardians in red robes with white ermine trim. Their original job: brand every barrel in the region, issue the harvest proclamation, and destroy any wine found unworthy. The Jurade was suppressed during the Revolution, revived in 1948, and today it still functions. The Jurade climbs this 13th-century tower TWICE a year, not once: the judgement of the new wine on the third Sunday in June, and the proclamation of the harvest on the third Sunday in September. In September the Jurats climb in those red robes and announce to the town that the grape harvest may now begin. The vines have been waiting for this signal for 800 years. You can watch from below the tower — it's free, it's medieval theatre, and the wine flows afterward.

   HOW: Check the timetable with the tourist office before the third Sunday of September; the Jurats' procession to the tower can run by torchlight in the evening. Climb is reserved for Jurats. Watch from the foot of the tower on rue du Couvent. Photography from here: yes. Dress for a ceremony.

   BACKUP: If visiting outside September, the King's Tower itself is open for climbing (check tourist office for hours) — the view from the top is similar to the bell tower, with a different angle over the lower village.

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