notre dame cathedral

I would not keep my hopes up. There is still a wide exclusion zone around it, and as soon as clean up is complete and they figure out how to rebuild it, it will morph into a construction site.

Why not hop the train to Chartres and visit the cathedral there? Or Rouen, or Amiens, or Reims?

From all that i have heard, Notre Dame will be closed for the next 5-10 yrs.

Or Basilica of St Denis?

Indeed, while Notre Dame is the one everyone hears about, both Chartres and Saint-Denis are, in some ways, even more spectacular. With the structural issues that must be addressed at ND, it's going to be a long time until the public is permitted entry. It's surprising to me that Saint-Denis, in particular due to it's close proximity, doesn't get even more attention than it does on this forum.

Notre Dame is in some danger of collapse; it is seriously damaged and it is unlikely that even if things go very well, that it will be open to visitors for at least 5 years -- that seems optimistic to me.

St. Denis is a wonderful site and the tombs of French kings preserved when the bodies were not during the revolution are IMHO the most fabulous little visited tourist spot in Paris (well just over the city border but on the metro line 13 Basilique St. Denis stop)
https://janettravels.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/confronting-mortality-at-st-denis/

Notre Dame is not in danger of collapse (who said that ???)

The cathedral will not be open for many years for visitors but they are even going to hold a small mass shortly in side chapel.
https://www.france24.com/en/20190611-france-paris-notre-dame-cathedral-fire-first-mass

I suspect the site will be closed for quite some time and the exclusion zone may expand due to lead contamination. As others have mentioned, there are lots of other beautiful Cathedrals in Paris and the surrounding area.

Janet is absolutely correct about the possibility of collapse . The intense heat generated by the fire which , among other aspects , was hot enough to melt the lead of the roof , was also hot enough to compromise , at the very least , the upper courses of stone supporting the roof , as well as the structural integrity of the ceiling vaulting . There is likely to be massive reconstruction of these and other structural components before reconstruction of the roof frame can even begin . Some estimates of the time frame required are ranging from twenty to forty years . Given that the fire was recent , it will take a reasonable period of time for engineers to fully and accurately assess the degree of damage before determining the next steps .

.....but what about the rebuild in time for the Olympics? (says she tongue in cheek). All kidding aside, let's hope caution and sanity reigns with the timeframes.

As a brief addendum , fire authorities in Paris reported temperatures of 1500 degrees Fahrenheit in the fire . That is hot enough to braze metals or vitrify porcelain in a kiln . Imagine the effect of that high temperature on stone .

Thank you all for your replies.

Adding to the collapse issue. I don't know the situation now, but very shortly after the fire, France 2 featured a spot on the possible collapse of Notre Dame that could behave sort of like the fold up of a pop-up book if the winds and rain predicted in a coming storm arrived. Work was being done to shore up quickly crucial places in the building. Fortunately, the storm arrived with less severity than that predicted so the building wasn't tested.

It would probably take a few more years before they open the Cathedral to the public. We can just all visit and appreciate it from the outside for the meantime. Hopefully, it won't take more than 10 years for the restoration and rebuilding.

I have local friends who know people involved in the restoration and anxiety has been high about the level of damage to the stone and strategies to secure it until major structural repairs have been made. The heroic efforts of the pompier to keep the fire from taking root in the towers saved the church -- if they had not been able to do that, it would probably have been gone.