Île de la Cité
Ancient island birthplace of Paris, where kilometre zero marks the heart of France.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Île de la Cité in Paris starts at the bronze star marking kilometre zero, then reaches back to the Parisii, the Celtic tribe that settled this island roughly two thousand years ago. It follows Marie Antoinette's seventy-six days held in a cell at the Conciergerie in 1793, and Baron Haussmann's demolition of the medieval neighborhood here a half century later, which displaced twenty thousand residents. Stand at the Conciergerie's facade and listen for the same river the Parisii once crossed.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Conciergerie
Gothic royal palace turned Revolutionary prison, antechamber to the guillotine during the Terror.
Square du Vert-Galant
Triangular garden at the tip of Île de la Cité, where a Templar's dying curse echoes through centuries.
Keep of Vincennes
Fifty-metre medieval keep, Europe's tallest, once a royal fortress and prison for famous minds.
Notre-Dame Cathedral of Paris
Gothic cathedral rebuilt by two thousand craftspeople after the devastating fire of two thousand nineteen.
Hôtel de Ville
Gothic-Renaissance city hall where Robespierre spent his last night and de Gaulle declared Paris liberated.
Place de la Concorde
Vast royal square turned Revolutionary execution ground, now anchored by a three-thousand-year-old Egyptian obelisk.