Paris, Loire Valley & Mont-Saint-Michel: attractions & sights guide
A stop-by-stop guide to the best things to see along the Paris, Loire Valley & Mont-Saint-Michel route — 6 destinations, their must-see sights and how to drive between them.
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Paris
Paris is the capital of France and one of the world's most visited cities, built along the Seine and organized into twenty spiraling arrondissements. It is known for the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre-Dame, and a dense concentration of museums, monuments, and grand 19th-century boulevards laid out under Baron Haussmann.
Top attractions in Paris
Eiffel Tower
Built by Gustave Eiffel for the 1889 World's Fair, this iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars is Paris's best-known landmark and offers panoramic views from three public levels.
Louvre Museum
Housed in a former royal palace, the Louvre is the world's most-visited art museum, holding the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and collections spanning ancient civilizations to the 19th century.
Notre-Dame Cathedral
This Gothic cathedral on the Île de la Cité, begun in 1163, is renowned for its flying buttresses, rose windows, and gargoyles, and was restored after the 2019 fire.
Sacré-Cœur Basilica
Perched atop Montmartre, this white travertine basilica completed in 1914 offers one of the highest natural viewpoints in the city and overlooks the artists' square of Place du Tertre.
Arc de Triomphe
Commissioned by Napoleon in 1806 to honor his armies, this monumental arch stands at the center of Place Charles de Gaulle, where twelve avenues converge, including the Champs-Élysées.
Musée d'Orsay
Set inside a former Beaux-Arts railway station on the Left Bank, this museum holds the world's largest collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces by Monet, Degas, and Van Gogh.
Versailles
Versailles is a town just southwest of Paris, built around the vast royal palace that Louis XIV transformed from a hunting lodge into the seat of French government in the late 17th century. The Château de Versailles, with its Hall of Mirrors and formal gardens, remains one of Europe's most influential examples of royal architecture and landscape design.
Top attractions in Versailles
Hall of Mirrors
This 73-meter gallery lined with 357 mirrors facing garden-view windows was the ceremonial heart of the palace and the site where the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919.
Gardens of Versailles
Designed by André Le Nôtre, these 800 hectares of symmetrical parterres, fountains, and canals are a defining example of the French formal garden style.
Grand Trianon
Built in 1687 as a retreat from court life, this pink-marble pavilion in the park was used by Louis XIV and later Napoleon as a private residence away from the main palace.
Queen's Hamlet
Marie Antoinette had this rustic mock village of thatched cottages, a mill, and a farm built in the 1780s as a pastoral retreat within the palace grounds.
Chartres
Chartres is a market town on the Eure River in the Beauce plain, southwest of Paris, dominated by the silhouette of its cathedral rising above the wheat fields. The town retains a well-preserved medieval quarter of half-timbered houses along the river, alongside its UNESCO World Heritage cathedral.
Top attractions in Chartres
Chartres Cathedral
Largely rebuilt after a 1194 fire, this Gothic cathedral is famed for preserving nearly all of its original 12th- and 13th-century stained glass, including the deep cobalt 'Chartres blue.'
Old Town and Eure Riverbanks
Cobbled lanes, stone footbridges, and half-timbered houses cascade down from the cathedral to the Eure River, forming one of France's best-preserved medieval townscapes.
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Chartres
Housed in the former episcopal palace next to the cathedral, this museum displays paintings, tapestries, and a notable collection of historic harpsichords.
International Stained Glass Centre
Set in a restored medieval tithe barn near the cathedral, this center explains the craft of stained glass through exhibitions and rotating contemporary work.
Tours
Tours is the principal city of the Loire Valley, sitting at the confluence of the Loire and Cher rivers in the region historically called the 'Garden of France.' Its old town preserves a maze of half-timbered medieval streets around Place Plumereau, alongside a Gothic cathedral and Roman-era remnants.
Top attractions in Tours
Place Plumereau
The lively heart of the old town, this square is ringed by leaning half-timbered houses dating to the 15th century, now filled with cafés and restaurants.
Cathedral of Saint-Gatien
Built between the 13th and 16th centuries, this cathedral blends Gothic and early Renaissance styles and is noted for its ornate twin towers and stained-glass windows.
Basilica of Saint Martin
This 19th-century basilica houses the tomb of Saint Martin of Tours, a major pilgrimage site since the 4th century and a stop on the Camino de Santiago's Via Turonensis.
Rue Colbert and Old Tours Streets
A network of pedestrian streets lined with timber-framed facades, art galleries, and independent shops connects Place Plumereau to the cathedral quarter.
Amboise
Amboise is a small town on the Loire River known chiefly for its royal château, perched on a rocky spur above the water, and for its ties to Leonardo da Vinci, who spent his final years nearby at the king's invitation. The town's compact center is easily walkable, wrapped around the château's fortified base.
Top attractions in Amboise
Château d'Amboise
This royal residence overlooking the Loire was a favorite of Charles VIII and Francis I and contains the small Chapel of Saint-Hubert, believed to hold Leonardo da Vinci's remains.
Clos Lucé
Leonardo da Vinci lived and worked in this brick manor house from 1516 until his death in 1519; it now displays models built from his engineering sketches and gardens designed around his ideas.
Pagode de Chanteloup
This 44-meter Chinoiserie folly, built in 1775, is the sole surviving structure of the vast Château de Chanteloup estate and offers views over the surrounding forest from its upper gallery.
Château du Clos-Lucé Gardens (Leonardo's Park)
Spread across the Clos Lucé grounds, this park sets full-scale working machines based on da Vinci's designs, from bridges to flying devices, among landscaped woodland.
Mont-Saint-Michel
Mont-Saint-Michel is a rocky tidal island off the Normandy-Brittany border, crowned by a Benedictine abbey whose spire has guided pilgrims and travelers since the 8th century. Encircled by immense tides that once cut it off from the mainland twice daily, it remains one of France's most recognizable silhouettes.
Top attractions in Mont-Saint-Michel
Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey
Founded in the 8th century and expanded over the following 800 years, this Benedictine abbey crowns the summit of the island with Romanesque and Gothic architecture, including the cloister known as 'La Merveille.'
Grande Rue
The single medieval street winding up from the island's gate to the abbey is lined with 15th- and 16th-century houses now occupied by shops, museums, and creperies.
Ramparts and Fortifications
Built in the 13th to 15th centuries to repel English sieges during the Hundred Years' War, the island's walkable ramparts offer views over the bay and its shifting tidal flats.
Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel
Home to some of Europe's most dramatic tidal variations, this UNESCO-listed bay can be crossed on guided walks across the sand flats when the tide is out, revealing the mount's full isolation.
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