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Rick Steves Gave Me a Personal Tour of Paris — Here’s How You Can Get One, Too

This informative guided tour of Paris might just be Rick Steves Europe's best-kept secret.

Kelsey Fowler

As someone who doesn’t mind spending time alone on vacations, I find some of my favorite travel memories include walking around a city or exploring a museum on my own. On a recent trip to Paris, I wanted to experience the history and atmosphere more than the last time I had set foot in the City of Light, when I was focused on checking off the “must see” tourist attractions.

So, driven by the mindset of traversing the city more as a traveler and not a tourist this time around, I decided that, rather than hiring an expensive personal guide, or hopping along on a packed group walking tour, I would turn to one of the most trusted guides in European travel: Rick Steves . Steves is a renowned travel writer, synonymous with European travel and his philosophy of embracing local culture while abroad. The Rick Steves guidebooks are hugely popular — in fact, I picked up the pocket version of the Rick Steves Paris book specifically for this trip.

While I couldn’t book Steves to guide me personally through Paris, I did have the next-best-thing : his audio tour. As I set out to explore the Left Bank, I had the convenience — and added company — of hearing Steves directly in my ear as I started my walk. Great audio guides allow the listener to explore cities at their own pace without needing to map out an itinerary in advance. Simply download the audio tour, head to the first landmark, and hit play.

Steves spent a lot of his 2022 travels talking to himself, carefully noting updates and changes for his 60 self-guided audio tours. In April 2023, Rick Steves Europe republished updated versions of these tours , with guides in Athens, London, Salzburg, Paris, and more. The walking tours are excerpted from Rick Steves guidebooks, and the free Rick Steves Audio Europe app includes bonus features like a companion map, tips, and the full script of each tour.

I opted for the Historic Paris Walk audio tour , as it covered a lot of the neighborhood near my hotel . The tour is advertised as a three-mile journey, and Steves recommends two hours for walking, and another two hours if you choose to go inside the sights.

Zachary Scott/New York Times Magazine/Courtesy of Rick Steves' Europe

Starting out at Notre-Dame de Paris, I was instantly immersed in the story of Paris that Steves tells, building on the history of the city and religion that led to the construction of the cathedral. Even though the Gothic landmark is still undergoing repairs from the 2019 fire, I was able to listen to a good portion of the tour anyway, as Steves hits on a lot of the history and architecture on the outside.

One of the great things about the audio tour is each chapter of the narration has a separate title and picture, making it easy to navigate forward or backward in the audio to find the right location. Walking through the center of the city, I enjoyed having Steves as a companion, bringing me from spot to spot with enough insight to keep even my jet-lagged self interested. His style of narration is friendly and informative. 

The tour also includes verbalized step-by-step directions, so, if you have a good sense of direction, you can easily follow the turns and head to the next landmark or street without missing a beat. (I did have to pause once or twice to look around and make sure I was headed in the right direction.) But it’s easiest to follow the tour in the order Steves has laid out, as I completed almost a full loop around Île de la Cité, from Notre-Dame, to Pont Neuf, the Left Bank, the Latin Quarter, and Place Saint-Michel.

Of course, when I got to the famous bookstore Shakespeare and Company , I had to pause the guide to go inside. And that wasn't the only time I deviated from the tour: when I reached Sainte-Chapelle, I decided to skip that section as well. Because of Notre-Dame’s closing, this nearby church is even more popular now, and the line was too long for me to wait that day. In the updated tour found in the Rick Steves Audio Europe app, Steves does point out this is the one place to get an advance ticket for.

But as I walked through Paris, it truly felt like I had a personal guide with me. I didn’t feel like a tourist at all — I never had to pull out a map or a guidebook, and it made me appreciate walking through the city while learning its history.

The next day, I went to the Musée d’Orsay , one of Paris’s most popular museums, perhaps best-known for its extensive Impressionist collection with works by Van Gogh and Monet, among many others. Here, I pulled out my pocket-sized Rick Steves Paris guidebook (and quietly read it aloud to a friend as we walked the vibrant maze of Manets and Picassos). Steves also has an audio tour of the museum, and others, like the Louvre, if you’re more inclined to listen rather than read. 

If you — like me — are not an art student, but still want to appreciate these masterful works, Steves’s guides are helpful in pointing out which works are important to stop at, and what to look for once you’re there. I loved hearing more about the art world throughout history in Paris, and Steves is able to compare and contrast differing styles and movement, and build on that knowledge as you progress in time throughout the museum.

The Steves guides allowed me to explore landmarks and places I wouldn’t have otherwise known about, and get a great understanding of the city without any language barrier. Plus, self-guided tours offer flexibility and independence, while still offering a rewarding and informative experience. 

The Rick Steves audio guides are all completely free. Interested travelers can install the Rick Steves Audio Europe app to download the latest versions of the tours.

Focused Travels

A free audio walking tour of historical Paris

During a recent trip to Europe, I tried Rick Steves’ free audio walking tours . Throughout a week, I tried different free audio walking tours in different European cities. One of these was Rick Steves’ free audio walking tour of historical Paris.

This post contains affiliate links. If you click on one of these links and make a purchase, I will make a small commission with no additional cost to you.

How to use a free audio walking tour

I found several free audio walking tours of Europe in my pre-trip research. The most common way to get access to these walking tours is to download an app on your smartphone. Once you access the app, there are usually several audio tours available for download. Just click on the tour you would like to do and download it to your smartphone.

For the Rick Steves’ free audio walking tours , you can also download the sound file and map from his website and then transfer it to your smartphone or audio device you would like to use while walking.

Rick Steves has a variety of free audio walking tours for Paris, including the historical Paris walking tour I did. Other options include the Louvre Museum Tour, the Orsay Museum Tour, the Père Lachaise Cemetery Tour, the Rue Cler Walk, and the Versailles Palace Tour.

The free audio walking tour I chose: the historic Paris walking tour

The historic Paris tour included some well-known sights but also a few that I was not familiar with.

The Notre Dame Cathedral

The historic Paris walking tour started in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral . It was early in the morning, and I was happy to see that there were no crowds at the Notre Dame Cathedral.

The first sight on tour was Point Zéro des Routes de France, which is Point Zero, the point from where the distance to anything in France is measured. I am sure many people walk over Point Zero without even noticing it.

The audio walking tour discusses the carvings on the arches above the doors of the Notre Dame Cathedral . I found this fascinating, and it was impressive that these carvings were done so many years ago when tools were so limited! Some of it was quite gruesome!

From there the audio walking tour continued inside the Notre Dame. It was my first time at Notre Dame, and I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that entry was free! The audio walking tour took me through the entire Notre Dame covering both sides and included explanations of various items in the coves and on the walls of the cathedral. The stained glass windows were stunning!

After walking through the entire Notre Dame, I went outside and saw the statue of Charlemagne and His Guards in the plain outside the Notre Dame Cathedral.

Deportation Memorial

From there the audio walking tour took me along the side of the Notre Dame Cathedral through the Square of Jean XXIII , which is a public park. The Square Jean XXIII features several statues of Popes.

Eventually, I arrived at the Deportation Memorial , only to find that it was still closed. I was a bit disappointed but managed to take beautiful pictures from just outside the Memorial in the Square de L’Ile de France. I have added the Deportation Martyrs Memorial to my bucket list for future trips to Paris.

From there the walking tour took me across a bridge to Ile St Louis , which is an island in the River Seine. The Ile Saint-Louis is connected to the rest of Paris by four bridges.

The left bank

From Ile St Louis the audio walking tour took me back to the left bank, which is opposite the Notre Dame Cathedral. The view of the side of the Notre Dame from the left bank was spectacular!

Square René Viviani

In the middle of the Square is a fountain by Georges Jeanclos. It is quite a unique structure with no water surrounding it, but instead, there were pots full of colourful flowers around the fountain.

Rue René Viviani also contains Paris’ oldest tree – planted in 1901!

Right next to Paris’ oldest tree is the Church of Saint Julien le Pauvre . The Church of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre is one of the oldest religious buildings in Paris.

Shakespeare and Company Bookshop

The Shakespeare and Company Bookshop and Cafe are next to each other. The Shakespeare and Company bookshop has existed since 1951 and has become an icon in Paris.

I loved the fountain outside the bookshop. It is an example of fountains that are called Wallace Fountains. Wallace fountains can be found in most squares in Paris, always in a forest green colour. The history behind these fountains is quite fascinating.

Latin Quarter

The audio walking tour took me into the Latin Quarter, and I ended up at St Severin . The Church of Saint-Séverin is one of the oldest churches on Paris’ left bank and is still in use today.

Place St Michel

I eventually ended up at Place St Michel , which was around the corner from the hotel I was staying in. Tourists love this magnificent fountain, but I managed to take a photo as the one groups of tourists left. Place Saint-Michel represents the battle between good and evil with the archangel Michael representing the good that vanquishes the bad, or the Devil.

Sainte Chapelle

From Place St Michel, the audio walking tour made me cross the river using the Pont St Michel. I was in two minds about visiting Sainte Chapelle since I had seen several churches during my time in Paris and I was wondering if one more would not be a waste of time. I decided to visit the Church of Saint-Denys de la Chapelle since it was known for its gorgeous stained glass windows.

Sainte Chapelle is much smaller than the Notre Dame Cathedral and you have to pay an entrance fee. Despite this, I was not disappointed with my decision to visit Sainte Chapelle. It is a small, but colourful church. The colour is everywhere – on the walls, on the ceilings, the floors, and the windows. The stained glass windows were not only colourful, but the massive sizes made it even more impressive.

Sainte Chapelle was completed in seven years and was intended to house Christian relics such as Christ’s crown of thorns, which had been acquired by Saint Louis.

The Conciergerie

The Conciergerie has a long history.  King Philip the Fair built the monument and King John the Good later finished the kitchens. La Conciergerie served as a royal palace for several years before the French royal family moved to the Louvre and Vincennes.

The building then became the Palace of Justice and a prison. It played a significant role during the French Revolution with the establishment of the Revolutionary Court. It’s most famous prisoner was Marie-Antoinette. During the Restoration, a commemorative chapel was built in Marie-Antoinette’s cell.

Outside the Conciergerie, I found the most beautiful clock! It is the oldest clock in Paris and still keeps time.

Place Dauphine

The audio walking tour took me along the side and back of the Conciergerie to Place Dauphine , which is a square near the western end of the Île de la Cité. Place Dauphine was created by Henry IV in 1607.

Nowadays there are plenty of cafes and shops located in the Place Dauphine .

The audio walking tour ended at Pont Neuf. The Pont Neuf is the oldest standing bridge over the Seine River.

On the Pont Neuf is a statue of Henry IV who was responsible for the completion of the bridge’s construction in 1607.

Compare hotels and AirBnBs near the Notre Dame in Paris

The verdict.

I loved the free audio walking tour offered by Rick Steves. A walking tour gives you the opportunity to see the sights, but also to experience the smells and sounds of the city – which you may not get from the top of a sightseeing bus. The audio walking tour also works well since Rick Steves, and his co-presenter pointed out where to go for the next sight on the list. I love the fact that you are in control of the tour and can stop it to explore on your own once you reach a specific spot. The insights and explanations of the different points of interest were fascinating. The map on the app is also useful in following the directions given by the presenters.

One thing is for sure; I will be looking for more audio tours in my future travels! I can recommend this as an exciting way to explore a city.

Do you like doing self-guided walking tours? Which has been your favourite?

2 thoughts on “A free audio walking tour of historical Paris”

Looks like it was a great trip. I would have never thought of doing an audio tour.

Audio tours are amazing! I can definitely recommend it!

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Disobey Rick Steves in Paris: 4 Day Offbeat Itinerary

Dare to disobey the Rick Steves Paris guide with this itinerary for four days there. Delve deeper than the top sights with this guide for doing Paris in four days. It’s an action-packed Paris itinerary will take you to the popular attractions as well as some cool neighborhoods and offbeat urban locations.

Go Ahead, Disobey the Rick Steves’ Paris Guide

I like the Rick Steves’ travel guides. They offer very practical, budget friendly advice for how to navigate a city and prioritize its various sites. I often use them when in Europe.

But I’m also a well-traveled woman who has learned the hard way that confining yourself to seeing only the “must see” tourist sites is a sure-fire way to miss out on getting to know a place. I have visited and liked most of Paris’ top tourist sites, but they are heavily focused on French history and won’t give you much insight into modern Paris.

The Rick Steves guide to Paris prioritizes the following as must-see sights, using a series of ▲ notations to indicate priority:

▲▲▲ Notre-Dame Cathedral, Sainte-Chapelle, Louvre, d’Orsay Museum, Eiffel Tower, Champs-Elysees and Versailles.

▲▲ Orangerie, Army Museum & Napoleon’s Tomb, Rodin Museum, Marmotton Museum, Cluny Museum, Arc de Triomphe, Jacquemart-Andre Museum, Picasso Museum, Pompidou Center, Sacré-Cœur and Montmartre.

I’m not saying you should ignore those top things to do in Paris, but if you do only them, you miss out on the opportunity to get to know the city at ground level.

It’s great that you are planning to spend more than just two or three days in Paris. Four days will allow you to see some top sights but also have time to explore cool neighborhoods and see some offbeat urban spots, which we’re all about here at Wayfaring Views.

Some people wonder if Paris is overrated , but I don’t think so. You could spend a month in Paris and not get to all of the cool things to do there. So ask yourself what you truly enjoy doing…and what you don’t. If you aren’t into 15th century paintings and sculptures, skip the Louvre. If you are afraid of heights, skip the Eiffel tower. If you already have four gold-plaited toilets in your house, no need to visit Versailles.

I’ve designed the following four days in Paris around themes, and you can gleefully rewrite the Rick Steves’ Paris guide to suite your passions.

Doing Paris in Four Days

This four day Paris itinerary is divided into four distinct sections. It devotes one day to Pretty Paris, the second to Gritty Paris, the third to exploring cool neighborhoods and the fourth to day trips from Paris. Use this handy map to find all of the suggested Paris itinerary spots. Pretty Paris is blue, Gritty Paris is orange and the neighborhoods are in black. Now get going!

Day 1: Pretty Paris

You can hit a lot of the top attractions in Paris on what I call the Pretty Paris tour. This section hews most closely to some of the Rick Steves Paris suggestions. There is only so much that you can do in one day, so I suggest that you pick four things that are of the most interest to you and leave the rest for another trip. 

Hitting the top sights in the first day will also optimize your two-day Museum Pass (more on that below). I recommend the following places to visit in Paris because they are both popular and conveniently located within walking distance of one another.

Visit The Louvre

The Louvre’s painting collection is one of the richest in the world and will take you up to the time of the revolution in 1848. In addition to the Mona Lisa, they have treasures like Winged Victory, Psyche Revived, the Venus de Milo, the Raft of Medusa and much, much more. In fact, too much more. The museum is huge and can be overwhelming. Trying to see the Mona Lisa is like diving into the middle of a rugby scrum. Give yourself at least 2.5 hours and strategize your visit by checking out their catalog in advance.

Tips for visiting : To avoid crowds, be lined up before they open 9am or go for their late evenings (until 9:45pm) on Wednesdays and Fridays. If you don’t purchase the Paris Museum Pass, then buy an advance ticket to save wait time.

Go Blind at Sainte-Chappelle

This gothic jewelbox got a major window cleaning a few years ago and my-oh-my do those windows shine. As I walked into the chapel from the stairway, a loud “WOW” flew out of my mouth. It will happen to you too, because the graceful arches and delicate stained glass are not something that you’ll find in other cathedrals.

Tips for visiting : Go first thing in the morning or later in the afternoon. The chapel is designed so that the windows shine the brightest when the light is low.

Cry at the Musee d’Orsay

The d’Orsay houses art dating from 1848 to 1914. They have a particularly good Impressionism collection. Even though you can also see Impressionism at the Orangerie and the Marmottan Monet, if you like the genre, you should visit the d’Orsay. They also have a painting from Van Gogh’s, Starry Night series. Dang, I love that series. I stood in front of the painting, listening to the Don Mclean’s song of the same title. His poignant lyrics about Van Gogh’s fragile hold on sanity made me cry. And that’s why I like the d’Orsay, because a good art museum will make you cry.

Tips for visiting : Go up to the top floor cafeteria and out the side door to find a small patio with fantastic views of the Louvre. Also, be sure to research these great ways to get tickets and skip the line to the d’Orsay .

Find Literary Ghosts at Shakespeare & Co Bookstore

The original Shakespeare & Co was founded in 1919 and was a gathering place for literary bad boys like Joyce, Hemmingway and Fitzgerald. In fact, the store was the original publisher of Joyce’s Ulysses, which was promptly banned in Ireland and the US. I do love a bookstore that bucks the censors! The current incarnation of the store was booted up in 1951 and was a hangout for Ginsberg, Burroughs, Nin and Miller. For a book nerd like me, visiting Shakespeare & Co is actually more important than going to the Louvre.

The founder of the store “built each room like a chapter” and you can get lost in the rabbit warren. Troll the shelves, plop down in one of their easy chairs or buy a pile of books to read in the attached coffee shop.

Tips for visiting : They are open everyday from 10a-10p and the store is a good rest stop after visiting all of the above museums.

If you are the kind of book-lover who likes to read before you go, check out this list of books about Paris .

Day 2: Gritty Paris

Sometimes the best way to get to know a city is by visiting it’s dark underbelly. I’m not suggesting that you fall in with a gang of Parisian thieves, but you can learn a lot about Parisian modern culture if you are willing to get your hands dirty.

Sniff Out The Sewers of Paris Museum (or Musée des Égouts)

A woman recently asked me what to see in Paris that is unusual and I immediately suggested this museum. She was delighted because it squares with her interest in urban infrastructure. The woman standing next to her wrinkled her nose in a sign of dissent. I swear, it doesn’t smell as bad as you might think…for a sewer.

This subterranean cesspool of a museum offers a self-guided tour with explanatory panels giving a history of Paris’ water, sewer and electrical infrastructure from the dark ages through today. There is a certain amount of cheek to their displays and they even have adorable rat and bacteria murals festooning the (somewhat moist) walls. Have I sold you on it?

Tips for Visiting : It’s a bit wet in there. Don proper footwear so that you don’t slip. Maybe also take a wet wipe with you. The museum wasn’t designed by IM Pei so there isn’t a gigantic glass pyramid pointing to the front door. Find it on the south side of Pont de l’Alma and purchase your ticket at the tiny kiosk perched above the Seine.

Read More : Did this tickle your fancy? If so, then you’ll love these weird things to do in Reykjavik (Penis museum anyone?), offbeat San Francisco (a Yoda statue, they have), and Berlin (Animatronic monsters and abandoned cold war sites)

Take a Street Art Tour

For those of you who have visited here before, you know that I’m crackers for street art . For those of you who are new, welcome!

I have a thorough guide that suggests four cool neighborhoods for exploring Parisian street art . If you just have a few hours and want to go guided, then take a tour in the Belleville with Street Art Paris . The murals in that neighborhood are very guerilla in nature and they are always evolving. This isn’t a pretty “big walls” kind of project like Upfest in Bristol . It’s more like the down and dirty street art that you might find in Shoreditch London .

Tips for Visiting : Bring your energy because because exploring street art requires a lot of walking.

Creep Around the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery

I went, because even though I like to keep death at arm’s length, historical cemeteries always tell a visceral story. The story line I got from Pere-Lachaise was like an epic historical novel; a conflicted mix of love, loss, neglect and nature.

Wandering around the cemetery, you’ll find a mix of carefully kept graves and broken down crypts. Look hard and you’ll even find the gravesite of musician Jim Morrison (which was surprisingly modest). Book nerds can also check out the grave of Oscar Wilde. That Wilde, he was quite a rule breaker in his own day. His own grave site departs from the usual gargoyle and cherub festooned stereotype with an angular, modern gravestone.

After a long day of tromping around Paris, I found the park-like grounds to be restful and oddly restorative.

Tips for Visiting : Don’t get off at the Pere-Lachaise metro stop, the Philippe Auguste stop is much closer to the main entrance. They have a detailed map at the entrance, take a picture of it so that you can find particular grave sites.

And if you like cemeteries, check out our itinerary for Key West , which includes a cool cemetery with hilarious headstones or our dark and twisty guide for New Orleans .

Day 3: Neighborhood Exploration

If you spend all four days in Paris dogmatically following the Rick Steves regimen from one museum and attraction to the next, you will miss something very essential about the city.

There is a term in French called “ flaneuring “, which means being an urban stroller. Baudelaire had it right when he said “For the perfect flaneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite.”

Follow Baudelaire’s advice and devote at least one day of your four day trip to Paris strolling one of its iconic neighborhoods. I’m not going to give you a strict itinerary for this because that would defeat the whole point of flaneuring. However, I will suggest two great stroll-worthy neighborhoods and a few ideas for fun things to do and eat in each.

Go Flaneuring in The Marais

Le Marais literally means “the swamp” and it earned its nickname in the middle ages because of the tiny narrow houses, tight lanes and irrigated fields. It hit its architectural heyday in the 17th century and has also been an historic Jewish quarter and LGBT district. So, there’s a lot of history to walk through while you stroll. A few highlights in the district include the following:

• Place des Vosges : A lovely French garden where you can lounge on the grass.
• Victor Hugo House : This little museum shares the story of his Parisian residency and has great views of the Place des Vosges.
• Picasso Museum : This Picasso museum is far superior to the one in Barcelona and they have very thought provoking special exhibitions.
• Le Village St. Paul : This is an adorable little enclave of quirky stores and cafes.
• rue des Francs Bourgeois : Do some window shopping all along this main drag that bisects The Marais.
• Marché aux Enfants Rouges : Paris’ oldest covered market which is full of food stalls, making it a great place for lunch.

If you’d like a little more structure to your exploration of the Marais, consider taking one of these tours

• A private tour of the Marais by a local which they will customize to your interests.
• A walking tour of the secret Marais led by a local, featuring hidden courtyards and pastry shops.
• A secret food tour featuring croissant, baguette, cheese, chocolates and more.

Go Flaneuring in Saint-Germain de Pres & the 6th Arrondessment

This neighborhood on the left bank houses one of the oldest churches in Paris and was home to the existential intelligentsia of Camus’ day. The boulevard Saint-Germain runs down the center of it, but it’s worth getting off the main street and wandering around the narrower lanes. A few highlights in the district includes the following:

• Marche St. Germain : Shop for picnic supplies at this classic food market and be sure to hit up the Maison Mulot on the corner for some killer pastry and macarons (@ Rue de Seine).
• Luxembourg Garden : This large city park has a palace, museum and playgrounds with grassy gardens for eating your picnic.
• Eglise Saint Sulpice : This recently refurbished church was built in the 1646 and is featured in the DaVinci Code.
• Le Bon Marche : Go shopping in this classical Parisian department store.

This neighborhood isn’t huge so flaneuring it won’t take all day. It’s an easy 15 minute bus ride west to the Eiffel Tower where you can do both the tower and ride the Eiffel carousel. Because, you can’t spend four days in Paris without riding at least one carousel. You can also consider taking one of these tours of Saint-Germain:

• Secret Food Tour of Saint-Germain . This tour is expensive but well worth it because it involves a full walking tour whichculminates in a four course meal with wine.
• Macaron tour of Saint-Germain covering five separate stops and a history of France’s most colorful cookie.

Day 4: Day Trips from Paris

If you hustle on your first three days in Paris, then you’ll have time to explore some cool things outside of the city. Here two additional spots that I visited on my most recent trip:

Visit Luxembourg

It may sound counter-intuitive to visit a whole other country during a four day Paris itinerary but Luxembourg it worth it. Spend two short hours on the TGV and you’ll be able to bag a whole new country. Luxembourg City has a UNESCO designed old town with defensive fortifications and cool museums located on a fairy tale setting overlooking two rivers. If you get on a train by 7am and come back at 7pm, you’ll have time for most of the major sights.

If you are skeptical, read this piece on why Luxembourg is worth visiting . If you are interested, then check out this itinerary for Luxembourg .

Tips for visiting : Book your TVG tickets well in advance because the closer you are to the date of departure, the more expensive the tickets get. Once there, you can easily walk to the major sights.

Smell the Roses at Giverny

If you love Impressionism, then you are going to love Giverny, especially in the spring or summer. Monet built his home there and his expansive gardens provided the inspiration for so many of his paintings. There are two ways to do it, depending upon your time and inclination.

DIY Tour of Giverny

Take the Paris intercity train from the St. Lazare station to Vernon, then rent bikes or take the shuttle bus to Giverny. The whole trip takes about an hour of active travel time. DON’T buy the train tickets in advance. Just go to the station and buy a ticket with an open return, that way you can come back whenever you wish. DO buy the Monet’s Garden tickets in advance because that way you’ll avoid a slow ticket line. Beware however, that their online ticket system is clunky.

Once there, don’t go to the main ticket line, use the side entrance which is in a (not well marked) alleyway to the west. They open 9:30am and if you get there early, you can avoid the tour buses.

Getting an early start also means that you can get back to Paris in time to visit the Orangerie. This museum is focused entirely on Impressionism and post-Impressionism. They devoted two huge oval rooms to house Monet’s water lily series. Seeing the lilies in his garden and then seeing the lilies through his mind’s eye at the Orangerie is a whole other level of art appreciation. You can get into the Orangerie as late as 5:15 every day but Tuesday.

Versailles & Giverny Guided Tour

If you don’t want to do DIY and/or if you also want to go to Versailles, you can book an all day tour that goes to both. This tour includes skip the line entrance, a full tour and lunch. It lasts ten hours and you can  book the tour here .

Should You Get a City Pass?

There are two different kinds of city passes, the Paris Pass and the Paris Museum Pass . The Paris Museum pass includes free entry and skip the line privileges to fifty museums and attractions. The Paris Pass includes the Paris Museum Pass along with a metro travel card, 1-day hop on hop off bus ticket, a paper guidebook and discounts on tours.

Should You Get the Paris Pass?

No . It costs over 2x what you would pay for the Paris Museum pass and the extra features are not worth the money.

Should You Get the Paris Museum Pass?

Yes . I’m not a fan of city passes because they often leave out important sights, but the Paris Museum Pass is pretty thorough. It includes all of the historic sights and museums that I’ve listed here, except for the Eiffel Tower, Giverny Gardens and the Victor Hugo Museum. Nor does it include the food, street art and walking tours mentioned here.

If you were to pay a la carte for the Louvre, Sewer Museum, Orangerie, d’Orsay, Picasso Museum and Sainte-Chappele, you would pay €62.70. The 4-day adult pass is €62. Saving €0.7 cents isn’t a great bargain but having the pass also saves you a lot of time waiting to buy tickets for the individual sights. If you can cram the above sites into two days, then you will only pay €48 for the pass, which will save you €14.

Please be aware that “skip the line” privileges only means that you don’t have to wait in line to buy a ticket. However, you still may have to queue up to get into the museum along with all of the other passholders.

Where to Buy the Paris Museum Pass

It’s best to buy the pass once you get to Paris. You can purchase it online but then they’ll have to ship it to you. Find the pass at all of the major attractions and at Gare du Nord, which houses the trains coming in from Charles de Gaulle airport.

Additional Resources for Paris

Here are a few additional resources to help you plan your trip

• Master your budget with this resource for budgeting a trip to Paris .
• Plan you logistics and explore cool neighborhoods with this curated list of 18 Paris travel guides .
• Find awesome street art in Paris .
• Get inspired to visit Paris with these 32 books set there .
• Up your Instagram game with these 15 photogenic spots in Paris.

If you’d like to take a classic guide book with you, check out the Lonely Planet Paris Guide . The digital version is free with an Amazon Kindle Unlimited account. If you don’t have an Kindle Unlimited, you can get a 30-day free trial HERE .

There are so many things to do in Paris in four days that you’ll have some hard choices to make when designing your itinerary. But being brave and redesigning the Rick Steves Paris itinerary is worth it if you want to really see the city. I hope that you have found this trip planner useful. Be sure to leave space in your trip to experience serendipity…and don’t forget to eat plenty of chocolate! Bon Voyage.

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Thursday 17th of January 2019

Great guide Carol! Very detailed and helpful. Keep up the good work.

Friday 12th of October 2018

I want to follow this itinerary so I can take pictures of the same things you did. Except not sure about the smelly tour :)

Carol Guttery

Tuesday 16th of October 2018

The smelly tour was fascinating...I pinky swear.

Travel | Rick Steves’ Europe: Tangier, Morocco: A…

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Travel | rick steves’ europe: tangier, morocco: a cultural kaleidoscope.

I can’t think of any big city in Europe where you wake up literally at “cock crow.” In Tangier, Morocco — right across the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain — the roosters, even more than the minaret’s call to prayer, make sure the city wakes up early. I spent a recent birthday in Tangier, and started my special day with the roosters.

I arrived in Tangier after a quick ferry ride from Tarifa, on the southern coast of Spain. Though it’s just a 35-minute boat ride away, Tangier feels a world apart from Europe. Like almost every city in Morocco, Tangier is split into a new town and an old town (medina). The old town, encircled by a medieval wall, has colorful markets; twisty, hilly streets; and the Kasbah, with its palace and mosque. The Grand Socco, a big, noisy square, is the link between the old and new parts of town. The city is light on museums and attractions, but it doesn’t need them; Tangier’s sights are living in the streets.

To celebrate my birthday, I spent a couple of hours alone, just floating through the back alleys. Wandering through the market, just off the Grand Socco, I came across a collage of vivid images. A butcher was making a colorful curtain of entrails, creating mellow stripes of all textures. Camera-shy Berber tribeswomen were in town selling goat cheese wrapped in palm leaves.

A man lumbered through the crowd pushing a ramshackle cart laden with a huge side of beef. He made a honking sound, and at first I thought he was just being funny. But it wasn’t the comical beep-beep I’d make if I were behind a wheelbarrow. Small-time shipping was his livelihood, and his vocal chords were the only horn he had.

Around the corner, the click-click-click of a mosaic maker drew me into another tiny shop, where a man sat all day chiseling intentionally imperfect mosaic chips to fit a pattern for a commissioned work. As only Allah is perfect, the imperfection is considered beautiful.

In Tangier, many people can’t afford private ovens, phones, or running water, so there are communal options: phone desks, baths, and bakeries where locals drop off their ready-to-cook dough. During my wanderings, I followed a colorfully scarved woman into a community bakery. She was carrying her platter of doughy loaves under a towel. The baker, artfully wielding a broom-handled wooden spatula, received her loaves, hardly missing a beat as he pushed and pulled the neighborhood’s baked goods — fish, stews, bread, cookies, and pods of sunflower seeds — into and out of his oven.

After meeting up with my TV crew, we caught a taxi up to the Kasbah. Hearing a tap-tap-tap directly behind me, I turned around to see the back window filled with the toothy grin of a little boy. He had leapt onto the cab for the ride, legs and arms spread across its back side with nothing to grip. Realizing that the cab was about to make a sudden stop, his smile disappeared and he slunk back, hopping off the cab safely.

The Kasbah sits atop old Tangier. On Place de la Kasbah is the Dar el-Makhzen, a former sultan’s palace that now houses a history museum. The Kasbah is also the scene of a vivid gauntlet of amusements waiting to ambush parading tour groups: snake charmers, flamboyant water vendors, and squawky dance troupes.

The view of the ocean from here is not to be missed. The artist Henri Matisse traveled here in 1912-13, and the culture, patterns, and colors that he encountered showed up routinely in his art.

The vast majority of tourists in Tangier are day-trippers (from resorts in southern Spain). But I like to spend the night, experiencing the communal nature of a riad – a guesthouse typically found in the old town, with rooms surrounding a courtyard atrium. If you’re here in the evening, make sure to be out and about in the medina after dark, when in the cool of the evening, the atmospheric lanes, squares, and people conspire to become even more alluring.

Tangier offers nonstop action and cultural voyeurism to the max. There’s so much to see here that it makes the “ Star Wars” cantina scene look bland. Recent upgrades around town have brought an affluent and modern side without abandoning its roots. Many visitors are impressed by the warmth of the Moroccan people. I particularly like how they touch their right hand to their heart after shaking hands or saying thank you – a kind gesture meant to emphasize sincerity.

Walking through the labyrinthine medina, dodging grabby salesmen, teasing craftsmen, and half-bald dogs, I think to myself, “How could anyone be in southern Spain – so close – and not hop over to experience this wonderland?”

(Rick Steves (www.ricksteves.com) writes European guidebooks, hosts travel shows on public TV and radio, and organizes European tours. This column revisits some of Rick’s favorite places over the past two decades. You can email Rick at [email protected] and follow his blog on Facebook.)

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Paris Walking Tour

I read about free tours of Paris given by locals to improve the "image" of the French. I will be there from 12/29 - 1/8 and I would like to arrange for one. My only problem...I had bookmarked the information and my laptop is in the shop. I don't know if I will get it back before I leave. Does anyone have the information for this? Thanks.

I found this on Google, it looks very intersting!

Free Walking Tour

Happy Travels, John aka Gonzy

Found this one too!

Paris Greeters - Free Walking Tour

Thanks for that information. Those both look interesting and I will take note of them, but neither was what I had read about. The tour I was looking for is free, except you pay the guide for their transportation. I think you get matched up with a volunteer guide.

In case anyone is interested, I did find the information I was looking for. It is called Paris Greeter. You need to submit your request in advance and it is not free. It costs 10 euros at the time you make the reservation. I've been looking into the Sandemans Walking Tour, which is free,although the guides do accept tips. They meet twice a day with no reservation needed. I like that, so I can choose to do it on a day that it is hopefully not raining...:) I saw they also have a free tour in Amsterdam (and other cities), and since we will only be there one day it should be a good overview before we go to the Anne Frank house.

Andrea - Yes, I've read about the exact same program, and we plan to take advantage of it in May. This is the site you are looking for. http://www.parisgreeters.org/visitors/

I would love to hear about your experience with this...please PM me when you get home!!

sorry, i should have read your second post closer...i see you already found the info you were looking for. In any case, I'd love to hear your opinion of the Paris Greeter program when you get home!

We have used the "Paris Greeters" walking tour service, and it was most wonderful! You need to make arrangements in advance - at least 2-3 weeks is best - so book now!

Our greeter (they point out that they are not guides) took us on a lovely, local-flavor tour of the area around Montparnasse and the 14th Arrondisement, showing us all kinds of fun things about her neighborhood. She also showed us around the Sorbonne, where she both takes and teaches classes. It was a lot of fun: low-key, very local, totally non-touristy.

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