Everyone says Paris began on the Île de la Cité, and in 2026 archaeologists may have found a trace of it, a find still being checked. This walk circles the island from the place Saint-Michel and asks where, and how, the city began. You will stand where a king built a triangle of houses on river mud, hear why the bronze king on the Pont Neuf was cast from Napoleon’s bronze and what restorers found inside his horse, look at the first public clock in Paris on the palace where kings lived and a queen waited for her trial, hear why a chapel is said to have cost less than the relics it was built for, step on the star from which French roads are measured (a copy, since the fire), find the house Héloïse and Abélard probably never lived in, watch the rebuilt spire from a bridge and hear about the four days that saved sixteen statues, meet a tree on crutches planted by Henri IV’s herbalist, and end at the bookshop that calls itself Kilometer Zero, a few minutes from where you began. Everything is told from public streets, quays and bridges; nothing is narrated inside any church or monument, and no tickets are sold or bundled. Every claim is sourced and every legend labeled.

The stops

1. Place Saint-Michel: Where Did Paris Begin?
2. Place Dauphine: A King’s Triangle
3. Pont Neuf: The New Bridge and the Bronze King
4. The Clock and the Conciergerie: A Palace Turned Prison
5. Boulevard du Palais: A Reliquary the Size of a Chapel
6. Parvis Notre-Dame: Point Zero
7. The Canons’ Quarter: Héloïse and Abélard
8. Pont de la Tournelle: The Fire and the Four Days
9. Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre: The Tree on Crutches
10. Shakespeare and Company: Kilometer Zero

Finding the start

Start on the place Saint-Michel on the Left Bank, at the Saint-Michel Notre-Dame station (RER B and C, métro 4). Stand in the open part of the square between the big fountain on the corner building and the river, facing the fountain.

Terrain and access

About 3.4 kilometers, flat and step-free on sidewalks, quays and bridges; gravel and cobbles in the place Dauphine and the old cloister streets. Busy crossings with traffic lights at the place Saint-Michel, the boulevard du Palais, the rue de la Cité and the Pont de la Tournelle. Crowded around Notre-Dame and at the bookshop. No admissions; every building is seen from outside. The walk ends about 300 meters from the start, at the place Saint-Michel (RER B and C, métro 4).

Tickets

No admissions; every building is seen from outside.

The Conciergerie is a separate paid visit run by the national monuments agency (CMN); this walk tells it from the street and sells no tickets.

The Sainte-Chapelle is a separate paid visit with a timed reservation, inside the law courts’ security perimeter; this walk tells it from the street and sells no tickets.

Keep going

• Montmartre: Saints, Painters and the Commune
• Inside the Ring: One Square Mile That Ran an Empire

What you get

• An email from tours@the3dtravel.com with a link and an access code.
• Use it on your phone or tablet in an up-to-date web browser, no app store needed. There is no account to set up before you start.
• Download it on Wi-Fi before you go. After that it works offline: audio, text, map and pictures.
• Your booking includes 2 phones, so two of you can follow along, each on your own. Extra phones are $2.95 each, or a group can share one phone on its speaker.
• Play, pause and replay every part, skip back and ahead, or change the playback speed. Keep the screen on or tap play at each stop.

How it was made

Every fact in the narration is checked against a cited source, and legends are told as legends. The narration is written from that research. How our tours are made.

Image credits

• Photo: François Deneux, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Photo: Guilhem Vellut, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Photo: Chabe01, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Photo: Mbzt, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Photo: Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped, via Wikimedia Commons (license)

The post Where Paris Began: the Island, the Cathedral and the Kings appeared first on The3DTravel.

Up and over the hill of Montmartre, from the place des Abbesses to the steps of the Sacré-Coeur, with one question in your pocket: what was the white basilica on top built to atone for? On the way you hear the legend of Saint Denis told as a legend, stand where seven students made the vows that founded the Jesuits, see the tenement where Picasso began Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, the house where Theo van Gogh nearly gave up on his brother, the windmill that carries the name of the dance hall Renoir painted and the cabaret where a donkey painted a picture, learn why the hill was hollowed out, and reach the street where the Paris Commune began with two killings in March 1871. Every claim is sourced, every legend labeled, and the dispute over the basilica is told from both sides.

The stops

1. Place des Abbesses: The Nuns’ Hill
2. The Martyrium: A Legend and a Vow
3. The Bateau-Lavoir: The Laundry Boat
4. 54 Rue Lepic: Two Brothers
5. The Moulin de la Galette: Flour, Dancing and Renoir
6. Place Dalida: The Hollow Hill
7. The Lapin Agile: A Rabbit and a Donkey
8. Saint-Pierre and the Place du Tertre: The Village Square
9. Rue du Chevalier-de-la-Barre: 18 March 1871
10. The Sacré-Coeur: Penance for What?

Finding the start

Start on the place des Abbesses beside the green, glass-roofed métro entrance (Abbesses, line 12; take the lifts up from the platforms). Stand on the square a few meters south of the entrance, with rue Yvonne-Le-Tac leaving to the east.

Terrain and access

About 2.7 kilometers from the first stop to the last, with about 80 meters of climbing in all on steep cobbled streets (up to the place Émile-Goudeau, up rue Lepic, and up rue des Saules, the steepest pull). No steps on the main route, which avoids the stairs of the passage des Abbesses and of the parvis. Narrow sidewalks with some cars; the place du Tertre and the parvis are very crowded. The way down to Anvers station is the funicular (step-free) or about 300 steps. Abbesses station is deep: use its lifts. No admissions; every building is seen from outside.

Tickets

No admissions; every building is seen from outside.

Keep going

• Paris After Dark: Bones, Gallows and Alchemists

What you get

• An email from tours@the3dtravel.com with a link and an access code.
• Use it on your phone or tablet in an up-to-date web browser, no app store needed. There is no account to set up before you start.
• Download it on Wi-Fi before you go. After that it works offline: audio, text, map and pictures.
• Your booking includes 2 phones, so two of you can follow along, each on your own. Extra phones are $2.95 each, or a group can share one phone on its speaker.
• Play, pause and replay every part, skip back and ahead, or change the playback speed. Keep the screen on or tap play at each stop.

How it was made

Every fact in the narration is checked against a cited source, and legends are told as legends. The narration is written from that research. How our tours are made.

Image credits

• Photo: ho visto nina volare from Italy, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Photo: Alexander Baranov from Montpellier, France, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Photo: CarlottaOlmez, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Photo: Kalashni, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Photo: ptwo from Germany and UK, CC BY 2.0 (cropped), via Wikimedia Commons (license)

The post Montmartre: Saints, Painters and the Commune appeared first on The3DTravel.

Paris loves its legends: an alchemist who found the philosopher’s stone and never died, a devil carved over a church door, a turret where a prince was murdered. This walk tells every one of them, and labels each as a legend. Then it shows you the record, which is darker. A duke’s tower built after he ordered his cousin’s murder. A cemetery so full that a mass grave broke into a cellar, and the bones of ten centuries carried away by night to the quarries that became the Catacombs. The street where Henri IV’s carriage was stopped by a hay cart and a wine cart, and the stone that marks it. A fortress where the word morgue was born. And the square where Paris executed people for centuries, from Ravaillac to the first use of the guillotine. History, not horror: real people, named and told with care. Made for the evening on lit streets, and just as good by day. No tickets needed.

The stops

1. The Duke’s Tower: A Question for the Night
2. The Innocents: Where the Catacombs Began
3. Rue de la Ferronnerie: 14 May 1610
4. Place du Châtelet: The Fortress and the Morgue
5. The Tour Saint-Jacques: An Alchemist Who Never Was
6. Saint-Merri: A Devil Younger Than the Church
7. The Place de Grève: The Square of Executions
8. Rue François-Miron: The Houses Under the Plaster
9. Rue Vieille-du-Temple: 23 November 1407

Finding the start

Start on the south sidewalk of rue Étienne-Marcel, opposite number 20, facing the stone tower across the street (the Tour Jean-sans-Peur). Étienne Marcel métro (line 4) is about one minute to the east; Châtelet-Les Halles (métro and RER) is about five minutes south.

Terrain and access

About 2.5 kilometers from Les Halles to the Marais, plus about 500 meters on to Saint-Paul métro, flat, with no steps on the route. Mostly sidewalks and pedestrian streets, with setts in places. About a dozen signalized crossings, the busiest at rue de Rivoli, the boulevard de Sébastopol and rue Étienne-Marcel, and bicycle lanes along rue de Rivoli. Lit streets throughout. Every stop is on a public street or square: the garden around the Tour Saint-Jacques is never entered (the tour stands outside its railings) and no church, museum or cemetery is visited. Made for the evening and usable by day; from May to August it is not dark until about 22:00. The last two stops are residential streets in the Marais: earbuds only, voices low. Châtelet-Les Halles and the place de l’Hôtel-de-Ville are busy late at night: mind your bag and phone.

Tickets

No admissions.

Keep going

• Where Paris Began: the Island, the Cathedral and the Kings

What you get

• An email from tours@the3dtravel.com with a link and an access code.
• Use it on your phone or tablet in an up-to-date web browser, no app store needed. There is no account to set up before you start.
• Download it on Wi-Fi before you go. After that it works offline: audio, text, map and pictures.
• Your booking includes 2 phones, so two of you can follow along, each on your own. Extra phones are $2.95 each, or a group can share one phone on its speaker.
• Play, pause and replay every part, skip back and ahead, or change the playback speed. Keep the screen on or tap play at each stop.

How it was made

Every fact in the narration is checked against a cited source, and legends are told as legends. The narration is written from that research. How our tours are made.

Image credits

• Photo: Fabien Barrau, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Photo: jwalsh, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Photo: Guilhem Vellut, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Photo: Gilles390, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Photo: Erwmat, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)

The post Paris After Dark: Bones, Gallows and Alchemists appeared first on The3DTravel.