Many internet sites agree that in France there are approximately 45,000 châteaux, a category that can include castles, manor houses, large estates, and smaller fortified residences. The French government has a formal, legal classification of Monuments Historiques that includes some of these châteaux plus, perhaps, another 40,000 historically significant churches, abbeys, prehistoric sites, Roman ruins, bridges, and fortifications, for example. Narrowing that down further, there are about 100 of these properties across the country that are managed by the Ministry of Culture’s Centre des Monuments Nationaux, and thanks to friends and blog readers J & D, we discovered a pass that gives us entrance to most of these, some of which are accessible by train.

Whenever we’re planning a trip to a city that’s new to us, one item we always look for is a pass that might cover fees for museums, historic buildings, audio/visual experiences, guided tours, local transportation and perhaps shopping and dining discounts. Because we generally like to explore on foot, we don’t typically include bus/tram/Metro use but even a museum pass alone can often pay for itself after just a few visits. For example, on the website for the Paris Museum Pass, it says that with the 2-day version you’ll start saving upon entering your 4th museum.

There’s a similar savings when you buy the national Passion Monuments that includes around 90 sites with an annual cost of 45€ for one person or 70€ for two. With individual entrance fees averaging 13€ to 20€, especially in Paris, it only takes 3 or 4 visits before you break even.

Speaking of the capital city, here are the 7 monuments located there that are currently included in the Passion pass: Arc de Triomphe, Chapelle Expiatoire, Conciergerie, Domaine national du Palais-Royal, Hôtel de la Marine, Panthéon, and Sainte-Chapelle. Three of those are in the top 5 most-visited monuments in the country and to round it out, we can add in Mont Saint-Michel and our own Château and ramparts of Carcassonne, all covered by the pass.

If, like us, you enjoy traveling by train, the good news is that you can get to at least 18 of the monuments by rail. Names that we all might recognize include the Lyon Cathedral treasury, Chartres Cathedral towers and treasury, Reims Cathedral tower, and the towers of La Rochelle. Fans of castles can visit Château d’Azay-Le-Rideau, Château de Châteaudun, and the Château d’Angers that we featured on an earlier blog post with its 14th century tapestry. Here’s a link to the complete list for train access: https://www.monuments-nationaux.fr/en/magazine/thematic-files/holidays-and-weekends-in-france-all-our-ideas-for-visits/national-monuments-accessible-by-train

Below I’ll attach a link to a pdf of the brochure that lists all of the included monuments and shows their general location on a map of France. Today’s featured photo across the top of the post is the walled city of Aigues-Mortes and the tower in the first paragraph is Tour Pey-Berland in Bordeaux. In the gallery here, are our own photos from some of the monuments we’ve been to over the years. Enjoy your visits!

Passion Monuments website: https://www.monuments-nationaux.fr/abonnement-passion-monuments

Passion Monuments brochure pdf