Garden in Paris
Also known as Jardin du Palais-Royal
FreeCosts nothing to visit.
The Palais Royal Garden is a hidden formal garden enclosed by colonnaded arcades, a short walk from the Louvre Museum. Entry is free. The Buren columns, striped black-and-white pillars in the inner courtyard, are a popular photo spot and cost nothing to visit. The arcades around the garden are lined with cafes and boutiques: window-shopping is free, sitting down for a coffee is not, so budget travelers tend to bring their own and settle under the lime trees.
The garden is quieter than the Tuileries Garden and more intimate than the Luxembourg Gardens, yet it sits right between the Louvre and the grand boulevards. Built in the 1630s for Cardinal Richelieu and later opened to the public, it is one of the most elegant spaces in Paris and also one of the least crowded. For travelers stitching together a no-cost afternoon, it pairs naturally with the free outer grounds of the Tuileries Garden a few minutes south.
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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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The whole of Paris