Notre-Dame de Paris
The spire fell on live TV in April 2019; since December 2024 you can walk back inside.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Paris offline.
Eight centuries of Gothic engineering—flying buttresses, three rose windows, an 8,000-pipe organ—reopened after a $739 million rebuild that scrubbed the stone back to its original blonde rather than soot-gray.
What to look for
- The Gallery of Kings on the west front: 28 biblical statues beheaded in the Revolution—several original heads survive at the Musée de Cluny.
- The flèche isn't medieval—it's Viollet-le-Duc's 19th-century spire, rebuilt after the fire, with a bronze Saint Thomas among the roof statues.
- Emmanuel, the great bell in the south tower; four smaller bells were recast in 2013 to recreate the cathedral's original 17th-century sound.
On the Île de la Cité (4th); ~12 million visitors a year make it Paris's busiest monument, so arrive early.
Notre-Dame de Paris is one of 39 sights worth the detour in Paris, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Paris pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Paris
- Eiffel TowerThe 300-metre iron tower Parisian artists petitioned against before it was even finished.
- Louvre MuseumThe world's most-visited museum lives inside a 12th-century fortress that became a royal palace.
- Musée d'OrsayVan Gogh and Monet hung inside a Beaux-Arts station built for the Paris–Orléans railway.
- Champs-ÉlyséesA single 1.9-km straight line runs from the Concorde obelisk to the Arc de Triomphe — Paris's ceremonial spine on the Axe historique.
- Place de la BastilleThe prison that lit a revolution is gone — and the mob that stormed it on 14 July 1789 came for gunpowder, not the seven forgotten men inside.
- Arc de TriompheNapoleon ordered it after Austerlitz in 1806; twelve avenues still radiate from the star-shaped square around it.