Park in Paris
FreeCosts nothing to visit.
Parc des Buttes-Chaumont is one of the largest parks in Paris, a dramatic landscape in the 19th arrondissement with a lake, a waterfall, a suspension bridge, and a rocky island crowned by a small classical temple. Like every city park in Paris, it is free to enter, which makes it one of the best no-cost half-days in the northeast of the city.
The park looks natural but it was entirely engineered. It opened in 1867 for the Exposition Universelle under Napoleon III, built by the engineer Adolphe Alphand on the site of a former gypsum quarry and refuse dump. That history is why the ground rises and falls so steeply: paths wind up to a rocky island in the middle of the lake, crossed by a high footbridge, and on top sits the Temple de la Sibylle, a miniature classical temple modeled on a Roman original at Tivoli. Below it, an artificial grotto holds a waterfall. From the temple terrace, the views run free over the rooftops toward Sacre-Coeur and Montmartre.
For budget travelers this is a Paris that the guidebooks mostly skip. Take the metro to the Buttes-Chaumont station, bring a baguette and cheese from a market like Marche d’Aligre or Rue Mouffetard, and picnic on the grass the way local Parisians do instead of paying restaurant prices. From here it is a walk west to the towpaths of Canal Saint-Martin or a short hop south to the open-air avenues of Pere Lachaise Cemetery, so the whole northeast of the city links into a full day out without buying a single ticket.
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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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