Paris, France

Paris travel guide, in your ear

The City of Light, a timeless capital of art, fashion, gastronomy, and romance, built along the banks of the Seine.

  • 44 narrated stops
  • ~2 hours of stories
  • 6 languages
  • Offline ready

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

What is the Gingerguide Paris tour?

It is a self-guided audio walking tour of Paris, France, inside the Gingerguide travel guide app. The tour maps 44 sights and tells the story of each one in a two to three minute narration with a lifelike AI voice. When the story is not enough, ask the built-in AI guide about the place and keep the conversation going. Everything is available in six languages and works fully offline after a one-time download.

The city

About Paris

Paris is the City of Light. It has spent centuries as the world's teacher of how to be beautiful: how to build, paint, dress, think, and sit at a small table and watch the world go by. A great river winds through its heart, past a thousand years of palaces and spires, and along its banks life is lived a little more gracefully than anywhere else.

The city began on a small island in that river, where a Gaulish tribe, the Parisii, settled and the Romans built a town, Lutetia. It became the capital of France and a beacon of ideas, earning the name City of Light for its Enlightenment thinkers and its early street lamps. In 1789 its people rose in revolution, and a century later Paris dazzled the world with a new kind of painting and a tower of iron.

Today the Seine still threads the city, its banks a protected treasure, lined with grand boulevards, café terraces, and green-boxed booksellers selling old prints and books. Up on the hill of Montmartre, white domes rise where the painters once gathered. And Paris does ordinary things beautifully: the coffee, the bread, the small perfect pleasures of the day.

Three sights define it. The Eiffel Tower, built for a world's fair in 1889 and meant to be temporary, now soars three hundred metres over the rooftops and sparkles every night. The Louvre, a former royal palace turned into the largest museum on earth, holds the Mona Lisa behind a glass pyramid. And Notre-Dame, the great Gothic cathedral, badly burned in 2019, has risen again, reopened and radiant, at the city's heart.

Walk beside the river as evening falls and the lamps come on. The water shivers with gold, a boat slides past, and somewhere the Eiffel Tower begins to glitter against the dark. Paris does not need to try. It simply is what everyone else is compared to, and it knows how to make an ordinary evening feel like the whole point of being alive.

If you have one day

One day in Paris

A simple way to walk the highlights, following the route order in the app. Swap anything; Paris rewards detours.

The tour

What to see in Paris: all 44 stops

Every place below has its own narrated story in the app, and its own answers when you want more. Walk them in any order; the map shows what is around you.

  1. Eiffel Tower

    The iconic iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars, built for the 1889 World's Fair and now the most visited paid monument on Earth.

    landmark · ~120 min visit

  2. The Louvre

    The world's largest and most-visited art museum, home to the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and over 35,000 works spanning 9,000 years of civilisation.

    museum · ~180 min visit

  3. Notre-Dame Cathedral

    The Gothic masterpiece of medieval Paris, rebuilt after a devastating 2019 fire and reopened in December 2024 in all its restored glory.

    religious · ~90 min visit

  4. Musée d'Orsay

    The world's finest Impressionist museum, housed in a spectacular converted 1900 railway station, displaying masterworks by Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh and Degas.

    museum · ~150 min visit

  5. Palace of Versailles

    Louis XIV's magnificent royal palace 20 minutes from Paris, with its dazzling Hall of Mirrors, Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon and 800 hectares of formal gardens.

    palace · ~240 min visit

  6. Centre Pompidou

    Europe's radical inside-out cultural centre, with all its pipes, ducts and structure on the exterior, housing the continent's largest collection of modern art.

    museum · ~150 min visit

  7. Sacré-Cœur Basilica

    The gleaming white Romano-Byzantine basilica crowning Montmartre hill, 130 metres above Paris, offering the most sweeping views over the city.

    religious · ~60 min visit

  8. Arc de Triomphe

    Napoleon's magnificent triumphal arch at the top of the Champs-Élysées, guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and offering a breathtaking 360° rooftop panorama.

    monument · ~60 min visit

  9. Champs-Élysées

    The world's most famous avenue, stretching 1.9 kilometres from Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe, lined with luxury boutiques, cinemas and famous cafés.

    landmark · ~60 min visit

  10. Palais Royal & Gardens

    A serene arcaded garden complex built by Cardinal Richelieu, now famous for Daniel Buren's striped columns and as a peaceful oasis steps from the Louvre.

    palace · ~60 min visit

  11. Sainte-Chapelle

    A Gothic jewel box of 1248, with fifteen floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows 15 metres tall that flood the upper chapel in a kaleidoscope of medieval coloured light.

    religious · ~60 min visit

  12. Conciergerie

    The medieval royal palace turned Revolutionary prison where Marie Antoinette was imprisoned before her execution in 1793, and from which 2,780 people were sent to the guillotine.

    historic · ~90 min visit

  13. Place de la Bastille

    The square where the fortress-prison was stormed on 14 July 1789, launching the French Revolution, today marked by the July Column and the modern Opéra Bastille.

    square · ~30 min visit

  14. Musée Rodin

    Rodin's studio and home in the elegant Hôtel Biron, displaying The Thinker, The Kiss and The Gates of Hell in one of Paris's most beautiful sculpture gardens.

    museum · ~90 min visit

  15. Les Invalides & Napoléon's Tomb

    Louis XIV's grand veterans' hospital topped by a golden dome, sheltering the spectacular tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte beneath six nested coffins of red quartzite.

    historic · ~120 min visit

  16. Musée de l'Orangerie

    A serene jewel in the Tuileries housing Monet's monumental Water Lilies panels in two specially designed oval rooms, the artist's final gift to France.

    museum · ~90 min visit

  17. Palais de Tokyo

    Europe's largest centre for contemporary creation, open until midnight and presenting provocative, ever-changing installations with no permanent collection.

    museum · ~120 min visit

  18. Musée du Quai Branly

    A stunning Jean Nouvel museum dedicated to the arts of Africa, Oceania, Asia and the Americas, with Patrick Blanc's extraordinary living green wall on its facade.

    museum · ~120 min visit

  19. Père Lachaise Cemetery

    The world's most visited cemetery, final resting place of Jim Morrison, Édith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, Chopin and Proust, with the haunting Wall of the Federals.

    historic · ~120 min visit

  20. Montmartre

    Paris's bohemian hilltop village, the former haunt of Picasso, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir, still retaining its village atmosphere with cobbled streets and a working vineyard.

    village · ~120 min visit

  21. Moulin Rouge

    The legendary 1889 cabaret at the foot of Montmartre hill, birthplace of the can-can, immortalised by Toulouse-Lautrec's iconic posters and still staging 700 spectacular shows a year.

    theater · ~150 min visit

  22. Opéra Garnier

    Napoleon III's flamboyant Second Empire opera house with its underground lake, Marc Chagall ceiling and the legendary Phantom's lair, one of the most ornate buildings in the world.

    theater · ~90 min visit

  23. Place Vendôme

    Paris's most elegant square, lined with luxury jewellers and the legendary Ritz hotel, centred on a column made from 1,250 Austrian and Russian cannons captured at Austerlitz.

    square · ~45 min visit

  24. Tuileries Garden

    The grand formal garden stretching between the Louvre and Place de la Concorde, designed by André Le Nôtre in 1664, dotted with sculptures and the perfect Paris walk.

    garden · ~60 min visit

  25. Place de la Concorde

    Paris's largest square, where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were guillotined, now graced by a 3,300-year-old Egyptian obelisk and flanked by two monumental fountains.

    square · ~30 min visit

  26. Le Marais

    Paris's most historic medieval district, home to Place des Vosges, the Jewish quarter, gay Paris, designer boutiques and the finest concentration of 17th-century hôtels particuliers.

    historic · ~120 min visit

  27. Place des Vosges

    Paris's oldest and most beautiful planned square, built by Henri IV in 1612, with arcaded mansions in the classic red-brick-and-stone style surrounding a garden where Victor Hugo once lived.

    square · ~60 min visit

  28. Musée Picasso Paris

    The world's largest Picasso collection in a magnificent 17th-century Marais mansion, spanning 5,000 works through all his revolutionary periods from Blue to Cubist to late.

    museum · ~120 min visit

  29. Île Saint-Louis

    A tranquil 17th-century island in the Seine, perfectly preserved with its uniform architecture, prestigious addresses, and the legendary Berthillon ice cream that draws queues along the quai.

    historic · ~60 min visit

  30. Latin Quarter

    Paris's ancient student district around the Sorbonne, where Latin was spoken in the Middle Ages, home to buzzing cafés, bookshops, the Panthéon and the oldest street in Paris.

    historic · ~120 min visit

  31. Panthéon

    France's secular mausoleum on the Left Bank hill, housing the remains of Marie Curie, Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo and over 80 other French national heroes.

    monument · ~90 min visit

  32. Jardin du Luxembourg

    Paris's most beloved park, built for Marie de Médicis in 1612, with its famous octagonal pool, model sailboats, beekeeping school, orchard, and the French Senate in the adjoining palace.

    garden · ~90 min visit

  33. Saint-Germain-des-Prés

    The Left Bank's most cultured neighbourhood, where Sartre, de Beauvoir and Camus argued in the Café de Flore, home to Paris's oldest church and finest bookshops.

    historic · ~90 min visit

  34. Canal Saint-Martin

    A 4.5-kilometre canal built by Napoleon, lined with iron footbridges, swing bridges, and plane trees, now the hipster heart of Paris with the city's coolest cafés and boutiques.

    nature · ~90 min visit

  35. Belleville & Street Art

    Paris's most diverse and creative neighbourhood, birthplace of Édith Piaf, with the city's finest concentration of street art and vibrant immigrant communities from North Africa and China.

    village · ~120 min visit

  36. Trocadéro & Palais de Chaillot

    The iconic curved esplanade facing the Eiffel Tower across the Seine, offering Paris's most celebrated viewpoint, flanked by the twin wings of the 1937 Palais de Chaillot.

    landmark · ~60 min visit

  37. Catacombes de Paris

    The world's most famous ossuary, containing the remains of over six million Parisians arranged in vast subterranean galleries beneath the 14th arrondissement.

    historic · ~90 min visit

  38. Marché aux Puces de Saint-Ouen

    The world's largest antique and flea market, with over 2,000 dealers spread across multiple sub-markets in Saint-Ouen, just north of the Paris city limits at Porte de Clignancourt.

    market · ~120 min visit

  39. Musée Carnavalet: History of Paris

    The free museum of Parisian history, housed in a pair of magnificent 16th-century mansions in Le Marais, tracing the city from prehistoric times to the 20th century with Marcel Proust's bedroom reconstructed inside.

    museum · ~90 min visit

  40. Musée National du Moyen Âge: Cluny

    France's greatest medieval museum, set atop visible Gallo-Roman thermal baths, home to the six extraordinary Lady and the Unicorn tapestries woven in the 15th century and now recognised as UNESCO heritage.

    museum · ~90 min visit

  41. La Défense & Grande Arche

    Paris's modernist business district, anchored by the Grande Arche, a hollow cube 112 metres tall completed in 1989, aligned on the same historic Grand Axis as the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Élysées, and the Louvre.

    landmark · ~60 min visit

  42. Château de Fontainebleau

    The largest royal château in France, located 60km south of Paris, with over 1,500 rooms spanning eight centuries of royal history, the site of Napoleon's emotional farewell to his Imperial Guard in 1814.

    palace · ~180 min visit

  43. Musée Marmottan Monet

    The world's largest Monet collection, over 100 works in a converted hunting lodge in western Paris, including the painting that gave Impressionism its name: Impression, Sunrise, painted in Le Havre in 1872.

    museum · ~90 min visit

  44. Galeries Lafayette & Printemps

    Paris's grandest department stores side by side on the Boulevard Haussmann, crowned by the 1912 Art Nouveau steel-and-glass dome of Galeries Lafayette, the most spectacular department store interior in the world, with a free rooftop terrace overlooking the Opera.

    landmark · ~60 min visit

Did you know?

Three things most visitors miss

Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower was scheduled to be demolished in 1909, its radio antenna saved it by making it an indispensable military communications asset.

The Louvre

The Louvre's galleries stretch nearly 13 kilometres, if you spent 30 seconds looking at each artwork on display, it would take around 100 days to see everything.

Notre-Dame Cathedral

Victor Hugo's 1831 novel saved Notre-Dame from planned demolition by sparking a national movement for its restoration.

Planning

Paris tour: questions and answers

Do I need a tour guide in Paris?

Not a human one. Gingerguide covers Paris with 44 narrated sights, so you get the stories a guide would tell, at your own pace and on your own route. And if a story leaves you with a question, you can ask the built-in AI guide and discuss the place right there, the way you would with a guide.

How many stops does the Paris audio tour have?

The Paris guide covers 44 sights. Each one has a researched story of roughly three minutes, about 2 hours of listening in total. You choose the order and the pace; the tour is self-guided.

Does the Paris tour work offline?

Yes. You can download Paris in the app, audio, photos, and offline map tiles included. After the download, the full tour works without an internet connection.

Which languages does the Paris guide support?

Every Paris narration is available in English, Spanish, French, German, Turkish, and Chinese. You can switch the language in the app at any time.

Is the Paris audio guide free?

The Gingerguide app is free to download, and Paris includes a free preview: you can see all 44 sights on the map at no cost. A premium subscription unlocks the full stories, audio narration, and the offline download.

Hear Paris tell its own story.

Preview all 44 Paris stops free in the Gingerguide app.

Preview all 44 Paris stops free Get the app