Church in Paris
Also known as Holy Chapel
Paid entryThere is an entry charge.
Sainte-Chapelle is a 13th-century Gothic chapel on the Ile de la Cite, built by Louis IX to house the Crown of Thorns and consecrated in 1248. The upper chapel is almost entirely made of stained glass, with tall windows rising about fifteen metres from floor to vault, turning the whole room into a cage of coloured light unlike anything else in Paris.
Here is the catch for budget travelers: most of the island is free, but Sainte-Chapelle is not. It is a ticketed national monument, unlike the free-to-enter interior of Notre-Dame Cathedral a few minutes away. If you can afford one paid attraction in central Paris, this is a strong choice, and the upper chapel on a sunny day is the reason. A combined ticket with the Conciergerie next door, the former royal palace and revolutionary prison, is the better value if you want to make a paid afternoon of it.
Build the rest of the day around free sights so the ticket is the only spend. Walk the Ile de la Cite, see Notre-Dame Cathedral and the square in front for free, follow the Seine Riverbanks, and cross the bridge to the quiet lanes of Ile Saint-Louis. Sainte-Chapelle is also a stop on the Paris Free Tour, which explains the chapel from the street at no cost before you decide whether to go inside.
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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