Free tour type · 01
The story of the city.
An approachable walk through the events, people and changes that explain why a city is the way it is.
- Historical content
- Clear, rigorous tone
- Ideal for understanding
The ideaToday’s city makes far more sense once you know everything that came before.
What it is
Pure history, told on the street.
It’s not a list of dates. Each stop links a specific place to what happened there: how a neighbourhood was born, who made a crucial decision or why a building changed the city.
What you’ll find
The same approach in every city.
Origins and growth
How the city was founded, which periods shaped its growth and how its layout changed over time.
Turning points
Wars, revolutions, crises and celebrations, explained where they left their mark.
People and everyday life
The big names, but also how ordinary people lived, worked and had fun.
Architecture in context
What you see on façades and squares, linked to the society that built it.
Available routes
Start here.
From the Île de la Cité to the Palais-Royal: eight centuries of power
Kings, revolutionaries and architects on a walk from the cathedral to the garden where 1789 caught fire.
From Habsburg Madrid to the modern city
A stroll through the centuries that turned a Castilian town into a European capital.
From Barcino to the Crown of Aragon
Roman walls, the palace of the count-kings and the cathedral of the sea: two thousand years of history in the Gothic Quarter and the Ribera.
From Londinium to Wren's dome: two thousand years in the City
Roman walls, a Norman fortress and a city that rose from its own ashes, all in under three kilometres.
From Olisipo to the earthquake: twenty centuries uphill
From the great riverside square to the castle walls: Romans, kings, crusaders and the catastrophe of 1755.
The Rome of the Caesars, stone by stone
From the Colosseum to the Capitoline Hill, a walk through the political and monumental heart of the Empire.
From New Amsterdam to America's First Capital
From the Dutch fort to the balcony where Washington took his oath: two centuries of history in a mile of Lower Manhattan.
Amsterdam, from Dam to Golden Age
How a fishing village on a dam across the Amstel became the richest port in the world.
From the Reichstag to the Wall: the century that split Berlin
A parliament in flames, tanks face to face and a city divided for 28 years, told on the very spots where it happened.
From Edo to Tokyo: bridges, castle walls and an emperor's capital
From the bridge where every road in Japan began to the gates of the shogun's castle, now the emperor's residence.
Prague in Six Dates That Shook Europe
From Charles IV's Gothic bridge to the square of the Velvet Revolution: six centuries of Czech history on foot.
From Byzantium to the Sublime Porte: fifteen centuries of power
From the emperors' racetrack to the Orient Express terminus, by way of an empire's mile zero and the gate that gave its name to the Ottoman government.
What a route looks like
One route, stop by stop.
Every free tour has a sequence of stops, a full article for each place, an audio guide and a GPS map.
From the Île de la Cité to the Palais-Royal: eight centuries of power
- 01Notre-Dame Cathedral
- 02Sainte-Chapelle
- 03The Conciergerie and the Clock Tower
- 04Pont Neuf and the statue of Henri IV
- 05The Louvre Palace
- 06Palais-Royal
Notre-Dame Cathedral
Eight centuries of French history in front of a façade that survived revolution, neglect and fire.
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