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.
Promenade in Paris
Seine Riverbanks
Also known as Quais de Seine; Banks of the Seine; Seine Quays
FreeCosts nothing to visit.
The banks of the Seine through central Paris are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, lined with stone quays, bouquiniste bookstalls, and pedestrian paths that run past most of the city’s headline sights. Walking them is free, and it is the best way to see Paris on no budget at all. The route links the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum, Ile de la Cite with Notre-Dame Cathedral, and the smaller Ile Saint-Louis downstream, so a single walk strings together what most visitors pay separately to reach.
Drop down to the lower quays, the cobbled level right at the water, and the riverbanks turn into the city’s open-air picnic terrace. On summer evenings Parisians settle in with bread, cheese, and a bottle of wine, which costs a fraction of a riverside cafe table. The green bouquiniste boxes along the upper quays are free to browse for old books, prints, and posters.
Budget travelers walk the riverbanks instead of paying for a Bateaux boat cruise and see more of Paris in the process, on their own schedule and for nothing. String the walk together with other free staples like Sacre-Coeur for the city’s best free view and Pere Lachaise Cemetery for an open-air sculpture museum, and a full day in Paris can cost only what is spent on bread.
Practical
Before you go
- Address
- Quais de Seine, Rive Droite et Rive Gauche, 75004 Paris
- Good to know
On foot
Walks that pass through
Free and low-cost routes that stop at Seine Riverbanks.
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