Eiffel Tower → the Louvre

Every first-time visitor to Paris ends up doing this walk, usually by accident. You leave the Eiffel Tower intending to find a metro station, you notice the river is right there, and forty-five minutes later you are standing in front of a glass pyramid having seen most of the postcard version of the city on the way. It is the single most rewarding accidental walk in Europe.

The route

The good version follows the Seine on the Right Bank. Cross the Pont d'Iéna from the tower, climb the steps to the Trocadéro side, then turn east along the Avenue de New York and the Cours Albert 1er. You pass the Palais de Tokyo, drop down onto the quays where they are open to pedestrians, and continue past the Grand Palais and the Place de la Concorde before entering the Tuileries Garden. The garden delivers you to the Louvre's western entrance and the Pyramid.

It runs about 3.6 kilometres, or 2.2 miles. That is noticeably longer than the 2.9-kilometre straight line between the two buildings, and the reason is the river: the Seine bends north through the 8th arrondissement, and following it means walking the outside of the curve. You could cut the corner through the 7th and cross at the Pont Royal, which saves roughly 500 metres and about 650 steps, but you would be trading the best riverside walk in the city for a set of ordinary residential streets.

What the number is made of

Two point two miles at an average adult walking stride works out to roughly 4,720 steps. The terrain is flat — total elevation change across the whole route is under fifteen metres — and the surface is a mixture of paving stone, packed gravel through the Tuileries, and asphalt on the quays. The gravel is the only section where stride length shortens noticeably; expect perhaps two per cent more steps than the arithmetic suggests across that final stretch.

The two buildings

The Eiffel Tower was built as the entrance arch for the 1889 Exposition Universelle and was meant to stand for twenty years. It was deeply unpopular with the Parisian artistic establishment before it was even finished: a group of prominent writers, painters and architects signed an open letter of protest against what they described as a useless and monstrous structure looming over the city. What saved it from the scheduled 1909 demolition was not a change of taste but a change of use. The tower turned out to be an excellent radio antenna, and the French military wanted to keep it.

The Louvre's story runs in the opposite direction and over a much longer span. It began in the late 1100s as a fortress on the western edge of the city wall, was rebuilt as a royal residence over the following four centuries, and stopped being a palace when the monarchy stopped existing. The revolutionary government opened the royal collection to the public in 1793, converting a symbol of private wealth into the first great public museum in Europe. The glass Pyramid, designed by I. M. Pei and completed in 1989, drew almost exactly the same critical response the tower had a century earlier — and, like the tower, outlasted it.

Walking it well

Late afternoon is the best time. The light comes down the river from the west, which means the tower is behind you and lit, and the Tuileries are at their most pleasant in the hour before closing. The quays are busiest on summer weekends, when sections are closed to cars entirely and the crowd shifts down to the water.

In rain, skip the lower quays. They are unlit in places, the stone is slick, and the upper route along the Cours Albert 1er is barely longer and entirely covered by trees. In August, carry water; there is almost no shade between Concorde and the Tuileries entrance.

Your step count, by height

Step length varies with height by more than 25 per cent across the adult range, so the single figure at the top of this page will not be right for everyone. Here is the same distance for a range of heights, using the standard estimate of 0.414 × height.

Your height	Est. step length	Steps for this route
1.55 m	0.64 m	5,515
1.65 m	0.68 m	5,184
1.75 m	0.72 m	4,884
1.85 m	0.77 m	4,622
1.95 m	0.81 m	4,387

These are estimates. If you want a figure that matches your own gait, our guide to measuring your stride length takes about five minutes.

Common questions

Is there a shorter route?

Yes. Crossing to the Left Bank at the Pont d'Iéna and walking east to the Pont Royal cuts the distance to about 1.9 miles, roughly 4,080 steps. It is quicker and much less interesting.

How long does it take?

About 41 minutes of walking at a comfortable pace, before stops. Most people take an hour or more, because the route is full of reasons to stop.

Is the walk suitable for a wheelchair or a stroller?

The upper route along the Cours Albert 1er and through the Place de la Concorde is fully accessible. The lower quays involve steps in several places and are best avoided.

Try your own route

Enter any two places into the step calculator to get a figure for a walk of your own, or browse all twenty routes and eight articles.