From the Bastille to the Liberation: Paris History in 3 Days

Paris is a city of plaques. Walk any street in the center and you will find marble tablets recording a revolutionary club, a barricade, a deportation or a resistance fighter who fell on that spot in August 1944. This route reads them in order. It follows the great turning points of modern French history across three days, from the storming of the Bastille in 1789 to the liberation of Paris a century and a half later, with the museums that explain each one.

Day 1 is the French Revolution: the site of the Bastille, the Carnavalet's revolutionary rooms, the Conciergerie, where Marie-Antoinette spent her last weeks, and the Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine stood. Day 2 is Napoleon and the nation: his tomb and the army museum at Les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe and the Panthéon, where France buries its heroes. Day 3 is the Second World War: the Musée de la Libération in the command post of the Resistance, the Mémorial de la Shoah and the Hôtel de Ville, where de Gaulle spoke on the evening of the Liberation.

The arrival day is not part of it. Walk the Seine on the first evening and start the three days the next morning. The Musée de la Libération and the Carnavalet close on Mondays, and the Mémorial de la Shoah on Saturdays, so keep Day 1 off a Monday and Day 3 off both.

We earn a commission when you book through partner links on this page. It never changes the price you pay. See our affiliate disclosure.

This route at a glance

Tickets to book before you fly

Five tickets over three days; the Carnavalet and the Mémorial de la Shoah are free. Prices start at the figures shown, per person.

Arrival evening: a first plaque

Walk to the river and look for the first plaque. Along the quays of the Seine and the walls of the Île de la Cité, small marble tablets mark the places where members of the Resistance were killed in the fighting of August 1944, often with flowers below them. They are the most moving introduction to the city's history there is.

If you are near the Hôtel de Ville, stand in the square in front of it. It has been the stage of Parisian history since the Middle Ages, and Day 3 ends here.

• Plaques for the Liberation are often dated "août 1944".
• The tricolour flags on public buildings date from the French Revolution.
• Turn in early: Day 1 starts at the Bastille at 9:30.

Day 1: 1789: the Bastille, the Carnavalet, the Conciergerie and the Concorde

Start at the Place de la Bastille. The fortress-prison stormed on 14 July 1789 was demolished within months, but its outline is traced in paving stones on the square and the rue Saint-Antoine, and the July Column in the center commemorates a later revolution, of 1830. Walk to the Musée Carnavalet, the museum of the history of Paris, free to visit, whose revolutionary rooms hold a model of the Bastille carved from one of its stones, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and objects from the royal family's imprisonment.

Cross to the Île de la Cité for the Conciergerie, the medieval palace that became the prison of the Revolutionary Tribunal in the Terror. Nearly three thousand people passed through it on their way to the guillotine, and the chapel built on the site of Marie-Antoinette's cell is the heart of the visit. Your ticket also covers the Sainte-Chapelle next door.

Walk west along the river to the Place de la Concorde. Under the name Place de la Révolution, it was where Louis XVI was executed in January 1793 and Marie-Antoinette in October; a plaque marks the place where the guillotine stood near the obelisk. At the end of the day, the view up the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe shows where Day 2 begins.

Stops in order

1. 9:30 · Place de la Bastille: the outline of the fortress in the paving
   Place de la Bastille, 75004, Paris
2. 10:30 · Musée Carnavalet: the revolutionary rooms, free, closed Mondays
   Rue Payenne, 75003, Paris
3. 13:30 · Conciergerie: Marie-Antoinette's chapel, with the Sainte-Chapelle
   2 Boulevard du Palais, 75001, Paris
4. 15:00 · Sainte-Chapelle: same ticket
   8 Boulevard du Palais, 75001, Paris
5. 17:00 · Place de la Concorde: site of the guillotine
   Place de la Concorde, 75008, Paris

The numbers for this day

💡 Pro Tip

Find the Bastille outline in the pavement

Before you look at the column, walk to the corner of the boulevard Henri-IV and the rue Saint-Antoine. A line of pale paving stones traces the walls of the fortress; it is the only trace of the Bastille left in Paris.

Pro tip by: Alesia Vakula

Travel expert and itinerary planning specialist

If it rains: The museum and the Conciergerie are indoors; take line 1 from Cité to Concorde instead of walking.

Day 2: Napoleon and the nation: Les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe and the Panthéon

Les Invalides was built by Louis XIV for his wounded soldiers, and its golden dome now shelters the tomb of Napoleon, a red quartzite sarcophagus in a circular crypt. The Musée de l'Armée around the courtyard covers French military history from medieval armour to the two world wars; the galleries of 1939 to 1945, with de Gaulle's appeal of 18 June 1940 and the story of the Free French, prepare you for Day 3.

Take the metro to the Arc de Triomphe, which Napoleon ordered after Austerlitz and did not live to see finished. Under the arch lies the Unknown Soldier of the First World War, and the flame is rekindled every evening by veterans' associations. Climb to the roof: twelve avenues radiate from it, several named after Napoleon's victories.

End the day at the Panthéon on the Left Bank, where the Revolution decided to bury the great men of the nation. Voltaire and Rousseau lie in the crypt, with Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Marie Curie, the Resistance leader Jean Moulin and Josephine Baker. Foucault's pendulum swings under the dome.

Stops in order

1. 10:00 · Les Invalides: Napoleon's tomb and the army museum
   129 Rue de Grenelle, 75007, Paris
2. 14:00 · Arc de Triomphe: Unknown Soldier and the roof
   Tunnel de l'Étoile, 75008, Paris
3. 15:00 · Champs-Élysées: the avenue of military parades
   Avenue des Champs-Élysées, 75008, Paris
4. 16:30 · Panthéon: the crypt of the nation's heroes
   Place du Panthéon, 75005, Paris

The numbers for this day

💡 Pro Tip

Be at the Arc for the flame ceremony at 18:30

Every evening at 18:30, veterans rekindle the flame on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It is a short, simple ceremony and one of the most moving things to see in Paris; it means doing the Panthéon before the Arc rather than after.

Pro tip by: Alesia Vakula

Travel expert and itinerary planning specialist

If it rains: Les Invalides and the Panthéon are indoors; skip the Arc roof if the cloud is low and see the tomb under the arch.

Day 3: Occupation and Liberation: 1940 to 1944

The Musée de la Libération de Paris stands on the Place Denfert-Rochereau, above the underground command post from which Colonel Rol-Tanguy directed the Resistance uprising of August 1944. The museum tells the story of Paris under occupation through the lives of Jean Moulin and General Leclerc, and the visit ends with a descent of a hundred steps into the bunker itself. It closes on Mondays.

Ride to the Marais for the Mémorial de la Shoah, the memorial and museum to the Jews of France deported during the war, with the Wall of Names listing seventy-six thousand men, women and children. It is free and closed on Saturdays. On the Île de la Cité nearby, the Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation, at the eastern tip of the island, is a narrow, stark crypt in memory of the two hundred thousand people deported from France.

End at the Hôtel de Ville. On the evening of 25 August 1944, the day Paris was liberated, General de Gaulle spoke from its windows the famous words "Paris outraged, Paris broken, Paris martyred, but Paris liberated". Stand in the square and look up at the windows; it is where three days of history end.

Stops in order

1. 10:00 · Musée de la Libération: museum and the Resistance command post, closed Mondays
   4 Avenue du Colonel Henri Rol Tanguy, 75014, Paris
2. 13:30 · Mémorial de la Shoah: Wall of Names, free, closed Saturdays
   Rue Geoffroy l'Asnier, 75004, Paris
3. 15:30 · Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation: at the tip of the island
   Square de l'Île-de-France, 75004, Paris
4. 17:00 · Hôtel de Ville: where de Gaulle spoke on 25 August 1944
   Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, 75004, Paris

The numbers for this day

💡 Pro Tip

Read the street plaques on the way

Between the Mémorial de la Shoah and the Hôtel de Ville, look at the walls of schools in the Marais. Many carry plaques for the children deported from that school; reading a few of them is the most personal part of the day.

Pro tip by: Alesia Vakula

Travel expert and itinerary planning specialist

If it rains: The two museums are indoors; take the metro between them rather than walking.

Departure morning: the Panthéon quarter or the Père Lachaise wall

If you have a free morning, go to the Père Lachaise cemetery and find the Mur des Fédérés, the wall where the last fighters of the Paris Commune were shot in May 1871, a third revolution after 1789 and 1830 that this route does not have time for.

Bookshops in the Latin Quarter, such as those around the rue des Écoles, have the best history sections in Paris, in French and English.

• Père Lachaise opens early and is free.
• The Mur des Fédérés is in the south-east corner of the cemetery.
• Allow plenty of time for an international flight.

Which day goes where

The three days can run in any order. Use this table to keep every sight off its closing day.

Paris history on this route: a timeline

The three days follow history in order. The table links each event to the place where you will stand on this route, so you can rearrange the days without losing the thread.

💡 Pro Tip

Read one book before you go

A short history of the French Revolution and a book on the Liberation of Paris turn the sites on this route from places into scenes. The museums are excellent, but they assume you know the story.

Pro tip by: Alesia Vakula

Travel expert and itinerary planning specialist

More history stops if you have time

• The Mur des Fédérés at Père Lachaise, for the Paris Commune of 1871.
• The Musée de l'Ordre de la Libération at Les Invalides, on the Free French and the Resistance.
• The Cour du Commerce Saint-André, where the revolutionary newspaper L'Ami du peuple was printed.
• The Basilica of Saint-Denis, where the remains of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were reburied in 1815.

More 3-day routes

• Medieval and Gothic Paris: the city before the Revolution.
• Paris with a day at Versailles: the court that the Revolution swept away.
• The Marais and east Paris: Père Lachaise and the Commune.
• Paris for art lovers: the history paintings of the Louvre.
• Getting around Paris in 3 days: the metro lines on this route.
• One week in Paris: add Normandy and the D-Day beaches.
• All the 3-day routes, by theme