Paris Free Tour
The SANDEMANs Free Tour of Paris starts at Place Saint-Michel and walks along the Seine covering Notre-Dame, the Louvre exterior, and Sainte-Chapelle. It is the most established free walking tour option in Paris.
Square in Paris
Place Saint-Michel
FreeCosts nothing to visit.
Place Saint-Michel is a square on the Left Bank at the foot of the Pont Saint-Michel, dominated by a monumental fountain depicting the archangel Michael slaying the dragon. Free. The square sits at the gateway between the Latin Quarter and the islands of Paris, which makes it one of the busiest crossing points on the Left Bank and a natural meeting spot. Budget travelers use it constantly as a landmark: the Fontaine Saint-Michel, built under Haussmann in the late 1850s, is where everyone waits, and sitting on its steps costs nothing.
Cross the bridge and a few steps put you on Ile de la Cite, where Notre-Dame Cathedral and the free riverside walks of the Seine Riverbanks begin. Turn the other way and the Latin Quarter climbs away from the river, a dense free walk of bookshops, cheap student food, and narrow lanes. Free walking tours, including those run by SANDEMANs NEW Europe, often meet here because the square is impossible to miss. It also carries history for the price of standing in it: barricades went up on Place Saint-Michel during the Liberation of Paris in 1944, and it stayed a gathering point for demonstrations long after.
Practical
Before you go
- Address
- Place Saint-Michel, 75006 Paris
- Good to know
On foot
Walks that pass through
Free and low-cost routes that stop at Place Saint-Michel.
Nearby
More in Paris
Other places worth the walk, and what each one costs.
Arc de Triomphe
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
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.
Champs-Elysees
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.
Eiffel Tower
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.
Grand Canal Versailles
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
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.
Working out what Paris costs?
The whole of Paris