Places of interest in central Paris

We include here a selection of the sights listed in Access in Paris, concentrating particularly on central sites. Many more are described in the book. The descriptions are taken from the 1993/1997 publications.

The sites listed are:

La Défense

(Michelin Guide Principal Walk 27) is an exciting and unique new development to the west of porte Maillot. The buildings appear to have been part of a competition in architectural adventurism. While it is first and foremost an international business centre, it is still a very interesting place to see. The whole complex makes an interesting visit with great contrasts between the ultra modern Grande Arche and the huge bustling shopping and restaurant area Quatre Temps. The area is included in the recommended itineraries chapter of Access in Paris, based on the detailed description here.

The area is run by EPAD (Établissement Public d'Aménagement de la Région de la Défense) set up in 1958. EPAD have their offices at 1 place de la Coupole, la Défense 6, Courbevoie 92400, Tel: 01.47.96.23.30. The development is part of a grand design associated with the Grand Axis, beginning at the Louvre, along the Champs Elysées, and through the Arc de Triomphe.

La Défense is the new business centre of Paris and is characterised by futuristic architecture, notably the Grande Arche which dominates the skyline. Although it is a brand new complex, access has been surprisingly badly thought out and working out the potential ramped/lift routes was a minor nightmare for our surveyors. Nevertheless, there are ways to get around, even for the electric chair user, but they are not signposted nor are they obvious.

If you come on the RER, there is lift access from the platform to the ticket hall and foyer, which is huge. If you go past the Exit E sign there is a well hidden lift just alongside the SNCF information/reservation office which will take you right up to the Parvis which is the main open air concourse. The lift has a call button and intercom to summon someone to help you use it. If you want to go to the Grande Arche, the route is signed and also described in its own write-up below. If you want to go to Quatre Temps from the RER use the signed exit from the ticket hall, then go across part of the underground car park at level -1 for about 70m, following the signs for les Arcades and, once through another set of doors, you will find some lifts on your left to take you up into the complex. If you start from the Parvis, use the ramped entrance well over to the left at Porte de la Poste to avoid the +3+3 stepped split level which you can see in front of you. Remember that to get back to the RER you either use the Arcade lifts to level -1 which is the ticket hall level, or the lift from the Parvis by Info Défense.

Arriving by car you will come round the boulevard Circulaire which goes right round the La Défense area. As you come from Neuilly, central Paris, you will pass the Novotel on your right. The signposting is quite difficult to pick up, because there is so much of it. Various parking/business areas are numbered from 1 to 8 and parking for the Grande Arche and Quatre Temps is signed in sector 7, so the one you want is some way round. When you find it you have to choose between Park A (left) and Park B (right). It is probably best to choose Park B, from where the lifts will bring you up in the middle of Quatre temps.

It is essential to write down the number of your parking area and remember its colour. The park is about the size of Wembley stadium, or feels like it, and there are four levels underground. Each level has its own colour and sectors are defined by numbers. If you don't remember the number of your spot, you really could spend hours looking for your car. There are a few reserved places for people with disabilities, but it is a tiny number and when we surveyed they were all occupied. Exits from the car park are reasonably well signed, but with names that don't mean anything unless you know what they relate to on the surface - they are fine for locals and almost useless for visitors. We hope that the diagram of Quatre Temps (in Access in Paris) will help to clarify where you are likely to finish up.

Grande Arche de la Défense, Tel: 01.49.07.26.26, is an enormous, hollow cube 106m high offering a superb view of the skyline over Paris. The Arch is located at the west end of La Défense central boulevard. It is impossible to miss. The hollow part is so big that it could contain the towers of Notre Dame and it is as wide as the Champs Elysées. From the top, the Grand Axis of boulevards and major buildings - the Arc de Triomphe, Louvre, Concorde and Champs Elysées - is clear, but what you may not expect is the other alignment with the Eiffel Tower and the Tour Montparnasse.

If you have come on the RER and used the lift to the Parvis, you will be very close to the Info Défense building which houses an exhibition following the development of the complex. At the front of the Arch you will see +54 steps without handrails. However, a wheelchair accessible route is fairly well signposted from where you are; it goes down a ramp and through some doors where you turn left past an RER exit. You then reach the central column under the Arch where some escalators will take you up to the ticket office level. Just past the escalators is a main lift shaft with a call button and intercom point. It is about 300m from the Info Défense to the lift. Be warned: you may have to be patient at this point and/or send someone up to the ticket office to demand attention.

If you come via Quatre Temps and the underground car park there, use the porte de la Poste exit from level one, make your way across the Parvis to the Info Défense building and then follow the same route. Coming from the car park this way you would cover at least 400m to the Info Défense.

Tickets are sold on the main platform under the Arch. There are four lifts each taking about sixteen people which take you up to the level of the exhibition halls. From the lift exit there are +3+3 to the exhibitions, but temporary ramps are normally available, though you may have to ask the staff. Behind the lifts there was a somewhat congested bookshop and +6 or a wheelchair stairlift to bypass them. If you take this option, it gives flat access to the unisex wheelchair loo (D70+ ST70+) about 50m to your right at the end of the corridor. Men's loos are +10 and women's a further +10. If you turn left after the stairlift and go through the doors, there is another stairlift to bypass the +34 without handrails to the viewing area. They have provided a small raised platform to enable chair users to see over the parapet.

It is all quite good, but chair users depend very much on finding a staff member to operate the special systems and there may be reluctance by staff to operate the stairlifts etc for elderly people and disabled walkers who might find all the steps, particularly the +34 to the viewing platform, far too difficult. It is a place to consider coming to in an `occasionally used' chair if you have one.

La Défense Central Boulevard runs from the Grande Arche and the Parvis to the Takis pond overlooking the pont de Neuilly. Beware of long distances, because the esplanade is over 1km long. Its length is deceptive because it is dwarfed by huge skyscrapers. In the centre of the boulevard the monumental fountain plays, with both illuminations and music at set times. At the far end, between the Arch and the centre of Paris, there is the Takis pond with a 'mirror' of water to reflect dozens of multi-coloured lights. On a clear day there is a magnificent view both back at the Arch and over Paris.

In Access in Paris we also give details of the access to les Quatre Temps and the World Trade Centre.

Musée d'Orsay (Orsay Museum), 62 rue de Lille, 75007. Tel: 01.40.49.48.14 (Michelin Guide Principal Walk 11). Formerly a railway terminus and hotel, the Musée d'Orsay now houses a large and varied exhibition of paintings and sculpture. The period covered is approximately from 1850 to 1914. Photography is shown from its inception in 1839. Literature and music are included with both lectures and concerts. The Orsay provides the basis of a recommended itinerary.

The Orsay already had an imposing façade and the imaginative way the space and lighting inside has been used make this an exciting collection. The whole place is much more compact than the Louvre, although you will still cover between 500 and 1,000m if you want to see a great deal and seating is scarce.

Metered street parking may be available nearby, but there's not much of it. The signs send you to the underground car parks at place de la Concorde, quai du Louvre or the rue de Rivoli, all over 500m away. There's one designated parking space for disabled persons on the rue de Lille. When the Tuileries Gardens underground car park is open, for the Louvre, this may be the best place for parking. Note that the map indicates that there's parking on the port de Solférino, alongside the river, but getting from it to the Orsay is difficult as it's on the other side of the mini-motorway. Rebuilding work was going on at the time of the survey.

The taxi rank occupies the adjacent rue de Lille from which there is one step to the entrance. Alternatively there is a ramped entrance from the rue Bellechasse.

The information desk on the ground floor (level 0), to the right of the entrance, supplies a special plan of the museum in French for disabled visitors which shows the location of wheelchair loos and lifts. Wheelchairs are available on loan if you would find one helpful. There is a separate general information leaflet about the museum in English. We would suggest having a look at both these before setting out as not every lift covers all the floors and internal signposting is poor. The museum is designed so that you follow a path which covers the ground floor first, then takes you up to level 5 and finally leads you down the levels from here. The works are presented in rough chronological order, except when certain collections have been kept together.

Details of the lifts are as follows:

Some of the lifts (D80 W105 L140) are concealed by heavy doors and only some of them have a call button at a suitable height for a chair user. On the special leaflet for visitors with disabilities they have confusingly used the same letters on the plan to mark both the lifts and some of the different exhibitions, but the lifts are marked in yellow. Note that lifts A, C and D are near the rue Bellechasse entrance while lift B is at the other end of the museum.

There are two restaurants: a smarter one on level 2 and a café on level 5. Both have movable tables and chairs. Down a tiny step from the restaurant on level 5, a terrace affords a lovely view north over the Seine, if open. Unfortunately there are very few seats other than those in the restaurant.

There are three unisex wheelchair loos (D85 ST85): on the ground floor near lift C, on the level 1 near lift D and on level 6 via the Salle de Consultation.

Notre Dame (Notre Dame Cathedral), pl du Parvis, 75004. Tel: 01.43.26.07.39 (Michelin Guide Principal Walk 10). Situated on the Ile de la Cité, the Cathedral towers over the place du Parvis. A combination of history, architecture and a classic film make Notre Dame one of Paris' best known landmarks. It forms part of a recommended itinerary in Access in Paris which also includes les Halles and the Pompidou centre. The inside is wonderfully atmospheric and there are sometimes services which are at least partly in English.

There is an underground CP beneath the place du Parvis but there are +25 steps to get out. You can obviously get out the way the cars come in and out, but be careful! There is little other parking in the vicinity and a taxi may be more convenient as there are dropping-off points nearby. The nearby RER station St Michel has a lift to street level.

The square outside is slightly cobbled. The kerb around the cathedral has been ramped at the northwest and northeast corners and then the entrance to the Cathedral is over a stone block which sticks up about 3cm. The inside is flat except for the Ambulatory which is +3. For the really adventurous, and slightly mad, the tower is +10+64+182+185. A superb view rewards those who are able to make it to the top and although there are a few perches, there are no seats.

Panthéon, pl du Panthéon, 75005. Tel: 01.43.25.62.00 (Michelin Guide Principal Walk 20). This became the burial place for "great men who died in the period of French liberty". Mirabeau, Voltaire and Rousseau have their tombs in the crypt. The building has had a varied history, sometimes being used as a church; at one time it was the headquarters of the Commune, and later it became a lay temple. It has a fine exterior and impressive dome.

There is limited metered parking in the place de Panthéon. The entrance has +11 steps to the GF, then there is a further +5 to a raised level which goes right around the building with exhibitions en route. There are -38 steps to the crypt where the tombs are found. Those buried include Braille, Zola, Hugo and the Curies. From the crypt it is +8 to see a display about the history of the Panthéon. The adventurous can attempt to reach the terrace which is +188 with handrails up a narrow spiral staircase from the crypt. It is a further +30 with handrails and +12+6 without handrails to view the painted ceiling of the dome.

Tour Eiffel (Eiffel Tower), quai Branly, 75007. Tel: 01.45.55.91.11 (Michelin Principal Walk 3). The tower is probably the most famous landmark in Paris and is situated in a huge open area called the Champ de Mars. It was built for the World Exhibition in 1889, which in turn celebrated the centenary of the French Revolution. Since its opening, it claims to have had over 140 million visitors. It is included in a recommended itinerary together with a boat trip on the Seine.

There is parking directly under the tower, but this tends to fill up quickly and there are no reserved spaces for people with disabilities. An alternative is the car park for the Bateaux Parisiens which is at port de la Bourdonnais opposite avenue de la Bourdonnais, off the quai Branly. This is about 200m from the tower and is ideal if you are going to take the boat trip as well, as suggested in one of the itineraries.

The tower has three floors and getting to the first and second floors poses no problems. It stands on four legs. Three of them have huge lifts giving a route up. However, there are variations in the accessibility of different legs as follows:

Our survey team were greeted by a member of staff at the north leg groups entrance, despite not being a group. He ushered us into the lift ahead of the very long queue - so it can certainly be worth making yourself known. There was, however, a slight disagreement over whether the chair using member of our team could get to the third floor, as you have to buy a ticket for this at ground level. We agreed to differ and bought a ticket, which we had great pleasure in using later as the staff higher up didn't share the same reservations.

The lifts at ground level go to both the first and second floors. They are huge and have two tiers. The upper tier is reached by +18, but there is absolutely no advantage in going in the upper tier.

On the first floor, unless you go down the -7 steps to the viewing area, you can only see out on the Champ de Mars side. This is because the central part of the tower is occupied by a restaurant, conference centre, cinema (via +15), souvenir shop, café and post office. All the facilities have flat access, apart from the cinema. The viewing area down the steps is restricted because there is a balustrade all the way round at a height of 110cm and no elevated bits to help chair users. There are loos (D57 no ST) here.

To reach the second floor you either stay on the lift from ground level or take the lift from the first floor. The main section is flat and there is the possibility of viewing in all directions here. Again there is a balustrade all the way round at a height of 110cm, but there are regular gaps at a suitable height for chair users to see through. On one occasion we also managed to find a small trolley with a platform about 30cm off the ground and our chair using surveyor was able to see more from on top of this. This floor has an indoor area providing useful shelter, including a café, two souvenir shops and a wheelchair loo (D80 ST92 and a hoist).

In the centre of both floors there are places to enable you to look back down on the car park underneath and on the second floor there are mirrors making it easier for chair users.

The second floor has an upper section which is +18. The steps are slightly spiralled, although there is a straight staircase from the covered area and we came across a stairlift in need of repair on one set of stairs. From this upper section, as well as a photo and souvenir shop, the large lifts go to the third and uppermost floor of the tower and staff can open a side gate to bypass turnstiles.

The queues for the third floor can be huge and on peak days you may face a waiting time measured in hours, however, our survey team again made their presence known and were ushered ahead of the queues. The view is unique and our chair user got up and down perfectly well, with a little help. At the very top you exit from the lift in to the lower section of the third floor which is enclosed. It offers a view through 125cm high windows with a handrail, and a labelled map helps you spot the various sights on the skyline. There are seats, but they don't provide any view. To get the open-air view, there are +15 steps to the upper section where only wire mesh obstructs your view.

Musée du Louvre (The Louvre), 34-36 quai du Louvre, 75001. Tel: 01.40.20.51.51 or 01.40.20.50.50 (Michelin Guide Principal Walk 1). The Louvre palace has had sections built in every century from the 16th to the 20th, making it the world's largest royal palace. It is a huge chateau which has been adapted to become one of the largest and finest museums in the world. It contains some very famous works of art. It also has some 18km of corridors and halls, so a visit can be quite daunting. Fortunately the controversial new pyramid entrance has made it more accessible than it used to be. The recent opening of the Richelieu wing has led to substantial reorganisation and has enlarged this already vast museum still further, so it is worth getting hold of a floor plan and working out what you want to see.

The new CP entrance for both coaches and cars is off the avenue du Général Lemonnier, which is a dual carriageway in a tunnel with no pedestrian access. The coach park on level -3 has spaces for minibuses and adapted cars which are too high for the standard CP. There are also four spaces for disabled drivers on level -2. The CP levels are linked by a lift (D90 W100 L200) which gives flat access to the Cour Napoléon from a mezzanine between levels -2 and -3.

The nearest car, taxi and coach dropping-off points are more than 50m from the pyramid, including the rue de Rivoli and the quai du Louvre. The nearest accessible RER station is Châtelet-les-Halles which is just over a kilometre away.

The Pyramid is the main entrance to the Louvre. It is an imaginative glass construction over the Cour Napoléon. The entrance is flat and wide. The main route down is by escalator. However, the design includes a remarkable piston lift called `le Tube'. This does not have a lift shaft in the conventional sense, but rises on a huge piston from the floor of the reception area way below. The lift has an open top, so as you go up and down you can lean over the edge and look down. It has been beautifully designed, but there have been some problems with its reliability, which is not surprising considering that it is a unique piece of engineering. Hopefully the engineering bugs will get ironed out with time.

A second step free route from ground level to the Cour Napoléon is reached off the rue de Rivoli, by the arches called the Guichets du Louvre. The entrance is signed 'To Galleries du Carrousel', reached normally by escalator. There is also a lift, although you will have to ask one of the security guards to use it. The first lift has D90 W120 L130 and leads to a second (D120 W130 L140). At the bottom it exits by the passage leading to the Palais-Royal métro station exit, so to get out from the Cour Napoléon, head towards the inverted pyramid, turn right and follow the signs for the métro. Along this route, near the bottom of the escalators, were the only loos in the new complex. We were told that there were wheelchair cubicles in both the ladies and the gents (although they are not marked outside), and there was a large door, but as it was locked we couldn't check them.

The Cour Napoléon (Hall Napoléon) is a huge area with ticket and information desks, restaurant, café, bookshop, giftshop, post office (D60), auditorium and wheelchair loos. There is free access to this area and it is worth a visit, even if you don't go on to see anything in the galleries.

When you arrive in the Cour Napoléon, go to the information desk and ask for the Guide d'Orientation Visiteurs à Mobilité Réduite (Orientation Guide for Mobility Impaired Visitors) which is available in both French and English. This should give you up-to-date information about which galleries are open and how to get there. It has diagrams showing the location of lifts and what they give access to. The three main parts of the museum are shown on the diagram and to identify what is on display the Louvre further subdivides each of these parts into numbered sections. In addition there is an identifying colour for each floor being used. The ground floor is shown in steely blue, the first floor in a dark maroon and the second floor in a darkish amber. It is worth spending a few moments getting to understand the system they use and the descriptions of where you can get to using various lifts since it will probably save you a lot of walking or wheeling.

The information desk also has a free Guide du Visiteur à Mobilité Réduite, but this is only available in French. This gives a guided tour of the museum's highlights in the order in which they can be seen by taking various lifts. For further information, do not hesitate to contact the Louvre's disability officer, Anne-Marie Habdi, Tel: 01.40.20.54.32. She seemed extremely helpful and is keen to improve the Louvre's services. She would be the person to contact if you wanted to arrange any kind of group tour or education session.

Disabled visitors and their immediate companions can have free entry to the museum. This normally applies to chair users, and we are not sure exactly what criteria they apply. You can borrow a wheelchair in the Cour Napoléon if you think it would be helpful and in view of the distances that's a good idea for some.

Temporary exhibitions are held in a hall off the Cour Napoléon which has -8 steps with handrails, but there is a wheelchair stairlift to bypass them.

The Auditorium du Louvre. Tel: 01.40.20.51.51. Off the Cour Napoléon under the pyramid, it is used for concerts, 'colloques' (teach-ins), conferences and films. The entrance is flat but with heavy double doors. There is plenty of space at the top of the sloped seating for chair users.

A general point is to be wary of the polished wood and marble floors throughout the building as they can be rather slippery. There is some seating available in the galleries. Most exhibits are at wheelchair user height. The layout of the Louvre is confusing and the signposting is poor. Hence the orientation guide mentioned earlier is invaluable.

The museum is vast and it is impossible to see more than a fraction in one visit. If you plan your visit to see a sensibly restricted number of things and then come back a second time to see a bit more, you will probably enjoy what you do see twice as much. Just wait awhile in the Cour Napoléon and watch the blank faces of the people who have `done' the Louvre in half-a-day if you don't believe us.

One thing to beware of is that the lifts tend to be carefully tucked away and they are not particularly well signed. They are, however, marked on the orientation guide. Note that some of the standard guides are inappropriate for people with disabilities, in particular the Guide for the visitor in a hurry which really isn't much help because it takes you via numerous monumental staircases, of which there are legion.


The description here is based upon a survey in December 1992 and a further survey in June 1997 of the new Richelieu wing. The objects described here are in their permanent position. The diagrams show firstly the relative positions of the three main areas. In the Cour Napoléon, after getting over your wonder at its vastness and obtaining the leaflets we've mentioned, what you need to do is to find lifts D and E. These will get you up to the mezzanine level. We have made a detailed diagram of the mezzanine floor arrangement because this is the key to access to all parts of the Louvre. All the main lifts are marked, and you must first decide which exhibition area you are aiming for - Denon, Sully or Richelieu. The exit you choose from the mezzanine will lead you to the appropriate lifts.

It is possible to see over 80% of the exhibits on display by using the lifts, including all the most famous works of art. However, an additional hazard, currently, is that because of staffing shortage - or to be more accurate the high cost of maintaining security throughout the vast complex - various sections may be closed without much notice. If you are wanting to see a specific collection it might just be worth phoning in advance to check that it will be open.

The following is a suggested tour in Sully and Denon which takes in the main sights and avoids steps altogether:

You leave the Cour Napoléon at mezzanine level in order to get into the museum. To get up there, take lifts D or E located on the right-hand side of the escalators leading to Sully. The mezzanine level gives access into the ground floor of the main areas. The other things on the mezzanine are upper levels of the giftshop, restaurant, multimedia centre and more wheelchair loos with large door and sideways transfer.

Go round to the Denon entrance, and take lifts K or L to the first floor. This is where the main paintings are, including the Mona Lisa. There are works by Botticelli, Uccello and Titian among others. All this floor is accessible as far as Denon sector 8. Sectors 9 and 10 are via -3-6 steps. There is a huge area with paintings and you can get your best view of the Victory of Samothrace in Denon 3 from this floor. There is more than enough here for a long visit and the Grande Galerie alone is more than 300m long. There is a small accessible café in Denon 1.

When you have had your fill of paintings, go to the end of Denon 4 and ask for the door to be opened into the Galerie d'Apollon. This is not marked, but the guards are helpful and will open it up, as long as the gallery is not shut - which it is from time to time and commonly at lunchtimes. If you cannot get through, return to the mezzanine level, where you came from by lifts K or L, and go round to lift G in Sully, taking it to the first floor where you can pick up on the route described below.

In the Galerie d'Apollon you can admire the crown jewels and Suger's Eagle Vase. Then move on into the Sully first floor which contains art objects, Egyptian mummies and Greek vases. In Sully 8 you can take lift C to the ground floor to see the Venus de Milo and other Roman and Greek statues. When you have seen them, you must return by lift C to the first floor.

On the first floor move around to lift G in Sully 1. This gives access to all the Sully floors:

See what you are interested in here and then take the lift back to the mezzanine level. You can leave if you want, taking the lift back to the main Cour Napoléon floor level. If your eyes haven't glazed over, you could carry on and see the large Egyptian sculptures. Go round the `moat' of the Mediaeval Louvre and take lifts I or J - located behind the large model of the Mediaeval Louvre and opposite some wheelchair loos - to the first floor. All the exhibits here are on the flat. To get anywhere else after this you must come back to the mezzanine. You could also take a detour to see Salle St Louis, part of the Mediaeval Louvre, by taking lift H located opposite lift G.

The newly-opened Richelieu wing links on the flat or via open lifts to the Sully wing at all levels and from the Mezzanine above the Cour Napoléon using lifts D and E. The main lift in the Richelieu wing is lift P, which gives the simplest access to the first and second floors. Lift R is also useful in conjunction with open lifts to reach split levels.

Richelieu basement and ground floor
Step free access from the Cour Napoléon mezzanine level to the ground floor and to room 20 in the basement in Richelieu. From room 20, Cour Marly, containing the French sculpture collection, is to the left. The exhibition is on three levels involving +16+6 steps to terrace 1 and the temporary exhibitions room, followed by +6 to terrace 3, all bypassed by open lifts. Terrace 2 is reached from the ground floor level, by using an open lift to bypass -6. The Cour Puget is to the right of room 20: terrace 1 is step free, while terrace 2 is reached by an open lift and terrace 3 by an open lift from the ground floor. The only room that can't be reached without steps is the information room 1bis.

Richelieu first floor
Step free access to all rooms surrounding both Cour Puget and Cour Marly, using lift P. The rooms around Cour Puget contain medieval and renaissance objets d'art and those around Cour Marly contain 19th century exhibits and Napoléon III's apartments. The staircase between rooms 67 and 5 means that you will have to go right round the Cour Marly to get from one to the other. Rooms 74 to 80, which form part of this route are only open during limited hours, so to get round this if they are closed, you will have to use lifts P and R and go via another floor. The café, which is by the entrance to the apartments, has -1 step at the entrance, followed by a further small -1 to the seating area on the terrace. The loo near to room 25 has a cubicle in the ladies with D80 ST70, although it is not marked as a wheelchair loo.

Richelieu second floor

Access is similar to that on the first floor, with the staircase blocking access at room 20. On this floor there are French paintings from the 14th to the 17th centuries, and Flemish and German paintings in the Ecole du Nord, including Rubens.

Most of the lifts in the Louvre were large, with measurements as follows:

Wheelchair loos (D80+ ST80+) were found: off the Cour Napoléon, at the mezzanine level above the Cour, opposite lifts I, J and G; in Room 11 where there are paintings by Charles LeBrun; between rooms 15 and 16 in the Richelieu wing; and there are probably others. You will have to ask the staff if you are a long way from one of the ones we discovered.