Free self-guided walking tour of Paris, from Notre-Dame to the Eiffel Tower

This free self-guided walk through central Paris is about 9.9 km long, with about 2 hours 10 minutes of walking and 14 stops. It starts at Notre-Dame and ends at the Eiffel Tower. Every stop below has a short summary and a link to the source it is based on.

Distance and walking time come from the OpenStreetMap foot router (routing.openstreetmap.de), calculated along streets between the stops of Guidera's curated tour "Paris: Historic Core & The Louvre".

At almost 10 km this is a long walk. Many people split it into two halves: the Île de la Cité to the Tuileries, and the Place de la Concorde to the Eiffel Tower.

What does the route look like?

The route starts on the Île de la Cité at Notre-Dame and the Sainte-Chapelle, crosses the Pont Neuf to the Louvre, the Palais-Royal and the Tuileries, follows the Champs-Élysées up to the Arc de Triomphe, and ends at the Trocadéro and the Eiffel Tower.

What will I see on this walk?

1. Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris

Notre-Dame is the medieval cathedral of the Archdiocese of Paris on the Île de la Cité, and one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture, known for its pioneering rib vaults and flying buttresses and its huge rose windows. Construction began in 1163 under Bishop Maurice de Sully and was largely completed by 1260. A fire in April 2019 caused serious damage, and the cathedral reopened in December 2024.

Source: Wikipedia: Notre-Dame de Paris

2. Sainte-Chapelle

The Sainte-Chapelle is a Gothic royal chapel inside the medieval Palais de la Cité, consecrated on 26 April 1248. King Louis IX commissioned it to house his collection of Passion relics, including the Crown of Thorns. It has one of the most extensive collections of 13th-century stained glass anywhere in the world.

Source: Wikipedia: Sainte-Chapelle

3. Pont Neuf

Despite its name, the "New Bridge" is the oldest standing bridge across the Seine in Paris. It crosses at the western tip of the Île de la Cité in two spans: five arches to the left bank and seven to the right bank. The small park at the island's tip, the Square du Vert-Galant, is named after Henry IV.

Source: Wikipedia: Pont Neuf

4. Louvre Museum

The Louvre is a national art museum on the Right Bank, home to the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory. It is housed in the Louvre Palace, first built as a fortress in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II; remnants of the medieval fortress are visible in the basement. In 1546 Francis I made it the main residence of the French kings.

Source: Wikipedia: Louvre

5. Palais Royal

The Palais-Royal is a former royal palace on Rue Saint-Honoré, facing the Louvre. It was built for Cardinal Richelieu from about 1633 to 1639 by the architect Jacques Lemercier and was first called the Palais-Cardinal. Today it houses the Ministry of Culture, the Conseil d'État and the Constitutional Council, and its central garden is a public park.

Source: Wikipedia: Palais-Royal

6. Jardin des Tuileries

The Tuileries Garden lies between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde. Catherine de' Medici created it in 1564 as the garden of the Tuileries Palace; it opened to the public in 1667 and became a public park after the French Revolution. It covers 25.5 hectares.

Source: Wikipedia: Tuileries Garden

7. Place de la Concorde

The Place de la Concorde is the largest square in Paris, at 7.6 hectares, at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées. During the French Revolution it was the site of the executions of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and Robespierre. It received its current name in 1795 as a gesture of reconciliation.

Source: Wikipedia: Place de la Concorde

8. Pont Alexandre III

The Pont Alexandre III is a deck arch bridge over the Seine, built between 1896 and 1900 in the Beaux-Arts style, with Art Nouveau lamps, cherubs, nymphs and winged horses. It is named after Tsar Alexander III of Russia, and his son Nicholas II laid the foundation stone in October 1896. It has been a French monument historique since 1975.

Source: Wikipedia: Pont Alexandre III

9. Grand Palais

The Grand Palais is an exhibition hall and museum complex between the Champs-Élysées and the Seine. Construction began in 1897 for the Universal Exposition of 1900, which also produced the Petit Palais and the Pont Alexandre III. The Beaux-Arts building is known for its ornate stone façades and glass vaults.

Source: Wikipedia: Grand Palais

10. Petit Palais

The Petit Palais, across the street from the Grand Palais, was built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle. It now houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts and is one of the fourteen museums run by Paris Musées.

Source: Wikipedia: Petit Palais

11. Avenue des Champs-Élysées

The Champs-Élysées is 1.9 km long and 70 m wide, running from the Place de la Concorde to the Place Charles de Gaulle and the Arc de Triomphe. It is known for its theatres, cafés and luxury shops, as the finish of the Tour de France, and for the annual Bastille Day military parade. The name means "Elysian Fields", the place for dead heroes in Greek mythology.

Source: Wikipedia: Champs-Élysées

12. Arc de Triomphe

The Arc de Triomphe stands at the western end of the Champs-Élysées, in the middle of the Place Charles de Gaulle, where twelve avenues meet in a star. It honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and the names of French victories and generals are engraved on it. Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I, with an eternal flame.

Source: Wikipedia: Arc de Triomphe

13. Place du Trocadéro

The Trocadéro, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower, is the site of the Palais de Chaillot, which replaced the 1878 Trocadéro Palace demolished in 1937. The area is named after the Battle of Trocadero in southern Spain, won by French forces in 1823.

Source: Wikipedia: Trocadéro, Paris

14. Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars, built from 1887 to 1889 by Gustave Eiffel's company as the centrepiece of the 1889 World's Fair. It is 330 m tall, the tallest structure in Paris. Criticised at first by some leading artists and intellectuals, it has become a global cultural icon of France.

Source: Wikipedia: Eiffel Tower

Can I do this walk with an audio guide?

Yes. This route is one of the curated tours in Guidera, the iPhone app I build ("Paris: Historic Core & The Louvre", 14 stops). In Guidera, text stories are free (5 per day); audio narration and Walkman mode, which narrates each stop automatically as you walk, are part of Premium. You can stop and resume the tour where you left off. You can also download the tour and walk it offline: on the free tier one featured tour at a time, text only, after a short video; with Premium, up to 10 tours with audio. Map tiles aren't saved, so open the tour map once while online. Guidera runs on iPhone, not Android.

Sources

English Wikipedia articles, checked 1 October 2026: Notre-Dame de Paris, Sainte-Chapelle, Pont Neuf, Louvre, Palais-Royal, Tuileries Garden, Place de la Concorde, Pont Alexandre III, Grand Palais, Petit Palais, Champs-Élysées, Arc de Triomphe, Trocadéro, Paris, Eiffel Tower. Route and distances: OpenStreetMap foot router, map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

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