Island in Paris
FreeCosts nothing to visit.
Ile de la Cite is the island in the Seine where Paris was born, home to Notre-Dame Cathedral, Sainte-Chapelle, the Conciergerie, the flower market, and the Pont Neuf (the oldest standing bridge in Paris, despite its name meaning “New Bridge”). The island is free to walk. The western tip, Square du Vert-Galant, is a free park at river level where locals picnic, and the square in front of Notre-Dame holds the kilometre-zero marker from which all distances in France are measured. Budget travelers walk the island, cross the Pont Neuf for free river views, picnic at the tip, and stand where Paris began two thousand years ago. Sainte-Chapelle and the Conciergerie are separately ticketed, but none of that is needed for a no-cost day. The island sits a short bridge away from Ile Saint-Louis and the right-bank lanes of Le Marais.
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Other places worth the walk, and what each one costs.
The Arc de Triomphe is Napoleon's triumphal arch at the western end of the Champs-Elysees, the largest triumphal arch in the world at nearly 50 meters tall. Napoleon commissioned it in 1806 to honor the Grande Armee, and it was finished in 1836, long after his fall.
Canal Saint-Martin is a tree-lined waterway in the 10th arrondissement, threaded with arched iron footbridges and a chain of locks that still raise and lower passing boats. Napoleon ordered it dug to bring clean water into the city, and it opened in 1825.
The Avenue des Champs-Elysees runs from the Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe, the most famous boulevard in the world. It forms the central stretch of the historic axis that lines up with the Tuileries Garden and the Louvre Museum to the east. Free to walk.
The Eiffel Tower is the most recognized structure in the world, built for the 1889 World's Fair by Gustave Eiffel's engineering company and never taken down. It was meant to be temporary, a 20-year exhibit, but its usefulness as a radio and telegraph mast saved it and it has stood in the 7th arrondissement ever since.
The Grand Canal is a cruciform artificial lake at the western end of the Palace of Versailles Gardens, roughly 1.6 kilometers along its long arm. Andre Le Notre designed it as the vanishing point of the garden's central axis and as a mirror for the sky, so the whole layout pulls the eye toward the water.
Ile Saint-Louis is the smaller of the two natural islands in the Seine, a quiet residential island of 17th-century townhouses, one main street with ice cream shops (Berthillon is the most famous), and views of Notre-Dame from its western tip. Free to walk.
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