St Paul’s Cathedral

The dome climb is the reason most people come, and it happens in three stages.

The Whispering Gallery, at the base of the inner dome, is reached first — a circular walkway looking down into the cathedral. A whisper against the wall carries round to the other side, which children enjoy and which works better when the gallery is quiet.

The Stone Gallery, outside at the base of the dome, gives the first open-air view.

The Golden Gallery, at the very top, is the reward: a narrow walkway around the lantern with London laid out below and the river in front of you.

Five hundred and twenty-eight steps to the top in total. The stages get progressively narrower and steeper, and the last section is a tight spiral inside the dome structure.

You can stop at any stage and come back down. A great many visitors do the first two and leave the last to those with steadier nerves.

This is a serious climb and it is worth assessing before you buy.

The early stages are a broad staircase. The later stages narrow considerably, with sections where people going up and down have to negotiate past each other, and a final spiral that is enclosed and steep.

It gets hot. Reviewers mention this repeatedly — take water, which you will want at the top rather than the bottom.

There is no lift to the galleries and no shortcut down.

Anyone with claustrophobia, vertigo, knee or heart trouble should think carefully. Stopping at the Whispering Gallery is entirely reasonable and still worth doing.

Proper shoes. The stone treads are worn.

Included in your admission, run by the cathedral’s own guides, and consistently described as the best part of the visit — yet most visitors never find out it exists.

The tours run several times a day, last around ninety minutes, and reach parts of the building not open on the general route.

Ask at the desk when you arrive for the next departure and plan your climb around it rather than the other way round.

There are also shorter introductory talks and a multimedia guide included in the ticket, available in several languages, which is good but not the equal of a person.

If you do one thing differently from the average visitor here, make it this.

Beneath the cathedral floor and included in the ticket, and a substantial visit in its own right.

Nelson and Wellington are buried here in enormous tombs. Wren himself is here, under the inscription telling you that if you seek his monument, look around you.

There is a timeline of the cathedral’s history, memorials to artists and military figures, and the Order of the British Empire chapel.

Practically: the café, the shop and the toilets are all in the crypt, which makes it the natural place to start or finish.

It is also cool, quiet and seated, which after five hundred steps is not a small consideration.

Attending a service costs nothing, and the cathedral holds them daily.

Evensong, sung by the cathedral choir most days, is free, takes around forty-five minutes, and puts you inside one of the great interiors in Europe while it is being used as intended.

Sunday services are similar and several visitors specifically recommend timing a trip around one.

It is worship rather than sightseeing: you are seated, you do not tour the building, and you do not photograph.

What you get in exchange is the acoustics, the organ, and a cathedral without a crowd.

The practical approach for anyone on a budget: a service one day, and pay for the galleries another.

Tickets are cheaper online than at the door and booking secures a timed entry.

The cathedral is a working church, so it closes to sightseeing on Sundays and during services and special events. Check the opening arrangements for your date — this catches a great many visitors out.

The galleries close before the cathedral does, and in bad weather the outdoor galleries may close entirely.

Arrive early in the day. The Whispering Gallery works better when it is quiet, the climb is less congested, and the free tours have not filled.

Security checks operate at the entrance.

Photography is not permitted inside the cathedral. This surprises people and it is enforced.

You may photograph from the outdoor galleries at the top of the dome, which is where the views are anyway.

The exterior is free to photograph at any hour, and the west front floodlit at night is one of the better shots in the City.

The view from the Millennium Bridge, looking north with the dome at the end of the walkway, is the classic composition and costs nothing.

One Change, the small square east of the cathedral, and the roof terrace of the shopping centre opposite both give elevated views of the dome for free.

Two to three hours for the full visit: the cathedral floor, the crypt and the climb.

Ninety minutes if you skip the galleries.

Add ninety minutes if you take the free guided tour, which is the version worth doing.

Allow more recovery time after the climb than you expect. The crypt café exists for exactly this reason.

The cathedral sits in the City, so it pairs with the Museum of London Docklands, the Barbican, or a walk over the Millennium Bridge to Tate Modern and the South Bank — the bridge lands you directly opposite the gallery.

August is the busiest month here, with July, June and September close behind, and October not far off — a long warm-season peak.

January, February, March and April are the quietest, with barely anything between them.

Winter is a genuine option: the interior is unaffected by weather, the queues are short, and the climb is considerably more comfortable in a cool stairwell than a hot one.

The outdoor galleries can close in high wind or ice, which is the winter trade-off.

December brings carol services and a busier building, and a very different atmosphere.

Works better than a cathedral sounds, mostly because of the climb and the whispering.

The Whispering Gallery is the winner — children will test it repeatedly and it is genuinely surprising.

The crypt with Nelson’s tomb, and the sheer scale of the dome from the floor, hold attention.

The climb is manageable for most school-age children and is the part they will remember, though the narrow upper sections are not suitable for the very young.

Under-fives generally enter free and family tickets are available.

A good shape: crypt first, cathedral floor, then the climb as the reward, then the café.

The cathedral floor and the crypt are accessible by lift and ramp, with accessible toilets in the crypt.

The galleries are not accessible in any form — five hundred and twenty-eight steps with no lift and no alternative route.

A free companion ticket is generally available for visitors with disabilities, and wheelchairs can be borrowed.

The multimedia guide includes a British Sign Language version.

For anyone who cannot climb, the interior, the crypt and a free guided tour still make a substantial visit — and the view of the dome from the Millennium Bridge is free and level.

The cathedral publishes detailed access information worth reading before you book.

St Paul’s station on the Central line is a two-minute walk. Mansion House, Bank and City Thameslink are all close, and Blackfriars is a ten-minute walk.

The Millennium Bridge runs south from the cathedral directly to Tate Modern and the South Bank, which is the best approach on foot — the dome grows in front of you the whole way.

The City is quiet at weekends, which makes a Saturday morning visit unusually pleasant in the surrounding streets even if the cathedral itself is busy.

There is no useful parking and the congestion charge applies.

The reviews here are strongly positive, and the complaints are about the price and the number of steps rather than the building.

The thin version: pay at the door, walk the floor in half an hour, decide the climb looks like hard work, skip the crypt, and leave feeling it was expensive for a church.

The good version: book ahead for an early slot, ask immediately about the next free guided tour and build the visit around it, do the crypt while you are fresh, climb all five hundred and twenty-eight steps with a bottle of water, come out onto the Golden Gallery, and walk over the Millennium Bridge afterwards.

Then come back for evensong one evening, which is free and is the version of St Paul’s that most visitors never see.