About Churches to Visit
What this site covers, how the guides are written, and where the money comes from.
What this is
A visitor's guide to the churches of the world, written for people who are going to be standing in one next Tuesday. Not an architectural history and not a devotional site. If you want the full structural analysis of a rib vault there are better places; if you want to know which chapel the good fresco is in and whether the ticket office takes cards, this is the site.
Every guide follows the same seven-part shape: the story, a practical cheat sheet, tickets, the things worth finding inside, the tips you only get from having been, where to stay and eat, and what else is nearby.
What counts as a church here
Christian places of worship that are open to visitors: cathedrals, basilicas, abbeys, monasteries, chapels, stave churches, rock-cut churches, ossuaries, and ruins substantial enough to walk around.
Two rules settle the awkward cases, and they are applied consistently rather than case by case:
- A building raised as a church is covered, whatever it is used for now. That takes in the Córdoba Mezquita-Catedral and the Chora church in Istanbul.
- A building in Christian use is covered, whatever it was built as.
Buildings that were never churches and are not churches now are outside the scope, however magnificent. Where a building's use has changed, the guide says so plainly and tells you what that means for a visit — dress, access, whether the mosaics are screened, when it closes for prayer.
How the guides are researched
Opening hours and prices change constantly and every travel site on the internet has a page of numbers that went out of date in 2019. This site gives approximate hours and price bands, says which ticket you actually need, and points you at the official site for the current figure. Where something is exact and durable — 287 steps, three tent roofs, 1,300 semi-precious stones — you get the exact number.
Where a photograph on a page is not of the place being described, the caption says so.
How the site is paid for
Nothing, at the moment. The site carries no advertising and earns no commission. Some guides link to GetYourGuide or Booking.com where a tour or a bed is the practical next step, and those links may one day be affiliate links; none of them is today, and following one currently earns this site nothing. If that changes it will be said here first. No entry on any list is here because it pays better than another, and where the free option is the better one — and it often is — the guide says so.
Corrections
Hours change, chapels close for restoration, and ticket arrangements get reorganised. If something here is wrong, tell us and it will be fixed.