Handpicked experience · Bordeaux
Bordeaux, France
The bell tower stands apart from its cathedral because Bordeaux's soft ground could not carry it, and ringing bells would have shaken the church for centuries.
Skip the long lines and enjoy direct entry to the iconic Pey-Berland Tower.
Prepare to climb the 229 steps of the tower and catch breathtaking views of the city.
Admire the Gothic architecture of the tower and Saint-André Cathedral.
A bell tower deliberately detached from its own church
Fifteenth-century stone standing on its own footing
A shaft once used to manufacture ammunition
An open platform above the cathedral roofline
The city laid out in every direction
Entry without standing in the ticket line
A skip-the-line ticket to climb the Pey-Berland tower in Bordeaux, the fifteenth-century bell tower that stands apart from the cathedral it belongs to, with a viewing level at the top.
Look at the tower and the cathedral and the obvious question is why they are not joined. The answer is underneath both of them.
Bordeaux is built on soft, damp ground, and the cathedral's foundations were never strong enough to carry a bell tower on top of the building. Worse, bells do not merely weigh — they shake. Ringing a heavy peal in a tower attached to that structure would have worked at the masonry continuously for centuries.
So in the middle of the fifteenth century, the archbishop whose name it carries had the tower built a short distance away, on its own footing. The bells could then be rung as loudly as anyone liked without transmitting a single vibration into the cathedral.
It is a solution that reads as an architectural quirk and was in fact structural engineering.
The tower's later history is stranger than its design.
Stripped of religious use during the Revolution, the empty shaft was noticed to be tall, vertical and fireproof — which is precisely the specification for a shot tower. Lead ingots were hauled to the top, melted in wood-fired crucibles, and the liquid metal poured down the inside.
Falling lead pulls itself into spheres on the way down and hardens before it lands. The tower built to keep bells away from a cathedral spent a period manufacturing ammunition by dropping metal down its own middle.
There is one staircase and it is a spiral, so it carries traffic in both directions. It narrows, the treads are stone, and there is no lift.
Two hundred and thirty-three steps is not extreme but it is continuous, with limited places to stand aside. If you are unsure about tight spiral stairs, this is a tight spiral stair.
The queue advantage applies to buying entry. It does not widen the staircase, and at busy hours the climb moves at the pace of the slowest person on it.
The viewing level is open to the weather and exposed. In wind it is genuinely cold, and in rain there is nowhere to shelter.
The cathedral itself is a separate building with its own arrangements, and this ticket is for the tower.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
The ground would not take it. Bordeaux sits on soft, damp soil and the cathedral's foundations could not carry a tower above the building.
No. Bells shake as well as weigh, and a heavy peal in an attached tower would have worked at the masonry for centuries.
In the middle of the fifteenth century, on the initiative of the archbishop whose name the tower still carries.
It lost its religious use and was noticed to be tall, vertical and fireproof — the specification for a shot tower.
Lead was hauled up, melted in wood-fired crucibles and poured down the inside, forming spheres as it fell and hardening before landing.
Two hundred and thirty-three, on a single spiral staircase. There is no lift.
Not extreme, but continuous and tight, with few places to stand aside as people pass in both directions.
No — they are run as two different things despite standing beside each other. You would need to sort the church out on its own.