Garden in Paris
Partly free, partly paidSome of it costs nothing, some of it charges.
The Jardin des Plantes is Paris’s botanical garden and natural history museum campus in the 5th arrondissement. The outdoor gardens and the alpine garden are free to enter, while the menagerie (one of the oldest zoos in the world), the Grande Galerie de l’Evolution, and the greenhouses charge admission. Budget travelers walk the free gardens, visit the free alpine garden, and see some of the oldest trees in Paris without paying for the museum galleries.
The site is tiered. The grounds, the formal botanical beds, and the alpine garden cost nothing to enter, while the menagerie, the greenhouses (Grandes Serres), and the natural history galleries charge admission. Founded in 1635 as the royal medicinal garden, it sits a few minutes’ walk from Rue Mouffetard, so a free morning here pairs neatly with a market picnic. For another free formal garden across the river, see the Tuileries Garden.
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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 de la Cite is the island in the Seine where Paris began, the spot where the Gallic Parisii and then Roman Lutetia first took root before the city spread to both banks. It is the historic heart of Paris, and almost everything on it can be seen for free.
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