Paris · FR

La Seine

The Seine is the spine of Paris, and at the point where this guide is anchored — the water between the Île de la Cité and the Île Saint-Louis in the 4th arrondissement — you are standing at the very cradle of the city. Since the Gaulish Parisii tribe settled here in Roman times, Paris has grown on either bank, and the river still threads the capital's greatest monuments past your eyes: Notre-Dame, the Louvre, the Conciergerie, the Musée d'Orsay, Pont Neuf and Pont Alexandre III. What makes this stretch special is that it is genuinely walkable and boatable. The lower quays have been freed from cars (closed to traffic since 2014 on the Left Bank and 2016 on the Right Bank) and turned into the green, pedestrian Parc Rives de Seine, while the UNESCO-listed banks between the Pont de Sully and the Pont d'Iéna — including both islands — can be explored on foot along the bouquinistes' green boxes or from the water on a roughly one-hour sightseeing cruise. In summer the riverbanks become the city's living room: deckchairs, guinguette bars on converted barges, and, for the first time in a century, supervised public swimming.