No photos allowed. Just your direct experience. It was a rainy day and, even though we wanted to wander the charming streets of St. Èmilion, visiting the monolith presented an opportunity to stay dry. The tour was fascinating! Our guide was generous, offering many English translations even though the tour we booked at the tourism office was supposed to be all in French. The catacombs and church are fascinating and I felt transported and immersed in a different time, especially as I couldn’t filter anything through the lens of a camera. There was a stark reality to the dark tombs, beautiful ancient frescoes and the vast cavern of a church excavated from the solid limestone.

The tour guide Valentine managed to capture the imagination and interest of both adults and children in the group, and she told the story of Saint Emillion (both the saint and the city) with great enthusiasm. The church itself was something very special, cut out from the limestone rock in the eight century. Great tour, about an hour long. Would absolutely recomend it to anyone interested in history and architecture! You buy tickets at the tourist center.

The moment we arrived at the village we went straight to the tourist office and managed to book the last English tour of the day for free with our Bordeaux city pass. This was a gamble as there was no guarantee we would find places but it worked fortunately. These tours are very popular so if you want a guaranteed place prepaying/prebooking for places on the tourist office website is recommended. The tour itself takes you first to the hermitage of St.Emilion and then to the catacombs and the underground church. The tour guide was very good and funny. She explained to us who St.Emilion was and his connection to the village, who was allowed to be buried in the catacombs and finally a few words about the church. I have to admit that the last part seemed to be rather rushed. The church is quite big and we were shown just a part of it. This could be because it was the last tour of the day, so again my suggestion is to get on the earlier tours if possible.

This was an incredible visit. You must sign up for the tour; otherwise you don’t get entry to the Underground caves and church. Meeting point is at the Place De l’église Monolithe and be on time. Plan time for finding parking as the tour starts on time, enters the underground sections quickly, and if you’re not on time you lose your entry with no reimbursement. That said, this was much like being in northern Ethiopia and its rock hewn churches….and yet one is in Europe. Almost same time in history. Amazing…and this was in St Émilion before the wine tasting and in fact was a stop on the Way of St James pilgrimage. (Parking is not difficult to find in St. Emilion before 10:30 in the morning. So, book a 11:00 tour!)

This is an absolutely world class site. The tour (must book in advance, strongly recommend booking on saint emilion tourist office website in advance but can visit the physical tourist office) allows you to see Saint Emilions underground hermits cell, the catacombs, the church and Chapel. The wonderfully well preserved 14th century paintings in the Chapel are amazing - it really is like stepping back into the past. We took the French tour in the morning so we could have a leisurely lunch- you can stop off via the tourist office to get a translation card in advance, but our wonderful guide Julia was conscious there were some non native speakers on the tour and spoke very clearly indeed and was funny, informative and engaging. If you've reasonable but non fluent French you will still understand the vast majority of the tour if you make it known its not your first language due to the excellent delivery, otherwise get a translation card or go on the afternoon tour in english, but do go, it is a unique experience and quite moving.