The Champs-Elysées have long since become a mythical site in Paris, and there is hardly a single tourist who does not visit them during their first trip to Paris . If you have also decided to visit this avenue, allow me to “join” you virtually and take you on a tour of the most famous avenue in Paris and its immediate surroundings, because if you just go a little to the right or left, you will discover wonderful places (some of which are known only to advanced Francophiles).
So let's put on comfortable shoes and set off along the two kilometers of Paris ' legendary boulevard.
A little history
Before we begin our tour, let me suggest you spend about 5 minutes of your time reading the article The Story of the Champs-Elysées – Paris’ Most Famous Boulevards . There you will find the fascinating history of these avenues, created in the 17th century, and it will help you understand what you will see during your trip.
Since knowledge is power, and in our case knowledge = pleasure, I promise you will thank me.
Route map
Below you can see the route map (all points of interest are marked with a star). Since this is an area where quite a few tourists want to live, I took the liberty of adding nearby hotels to the map.
Opening the map in full screen
If you would like a recommendation for an excellent apartment that is located not far from where the route begins, you are welcome to visit this link.
A walking route along the Champs Elysees
We will begin our trip at the eastern end of the Champs-Elysees, at Place de la Concorde, which can be reached by metro lines 1,8, 12, and XNUMX (get off at the Concorde station).
This square has a fascinating history that is worth getting to know, and if you are the type of traveler I like, namely curious travelers who are thirsty for knowledge, I recommend that you read the article Place de la Concorde – Fire, Blood, and Beauty in One Central Square in Paris.
What to see on the Champs-Elysées? Here are some of the important landmarks on the avenue:
After you've finished admiring this beautiful square, you're welcome to start walking west.
The Grand Palais and the Petit Palais
These two museums were built for the 1900 exhibition by the architect Charles Girault (1851-1932), and are in my opinion some of the most beautiful buildings in Paris. These two museums hosted some of the most important exhibitions of the 20th century. The most famous took place in 1905, where Matisse and the Fauves were discovered . A few years later, it was the Grand Palais that became the museum where Cubism was born following Picasso's famous exhibition there.
Until 2023, the Grand Palais was to host the FIAC (French for “International Fair of Modern Art”) exhibition every fall. However, the Grand Palais is currently closed due to renovations ahead of the Paris Olympics in 2024. The Petit Palais, on the other hand, is open and you can find a free permanent exhibition of art, mainly from the 18th and 19th centuries, plus wonderful temporary exhibitions. If you want to know about the temporary exhibitions on display at both museums, you are welcome to take a look at my recommended exhibitions page.
If you are traveling to Paris with children, you will be happy to know that the Grand Palais has an entire wing called the Palais de la Découverte (Museum of Discovery). It is a science museum with interactive exhibits that many children will love. Please note that this museum requires a separate ticket (more information below).
In the Grand Palais you will also find the Faculty of Linguistics of the Sorbonne . What is it doing there, far from the Latin Quarter ? God and the City of Paris have solutions.
Useful information – Grand Palais, Petit Palais
Metro:
Champs-Élysées – Clemenceau (lines 1 and 13)
Address:
- Grand Palais: 3 Avenue du Général Eisenhower,
- Petit Palais: Avenue Winston Churchill
שעות פתיחה:
- Grand Palais: 10:00-20:00 (closed on Tuesday)
- Petit Palais: 10:00-18:00 (closed on Mondays)
Buying tickets:
Please note: Palais de la découverte, the Palace of Discovery in the west wing of the Grand Palais, has been closed for renovations since 2020. According to a Universcience announcement from April 2026, the opening is scheduled for March 2027. So don't plan it on your itinerary at this stage.
Jardin de la Nouvelle France (recommended by Joel Tamanlis)
Walk along Avenue Winston Churchill until you reach Cours la Reine, where you turn right. Behind the Grand Palais, between the Champs-Elysées and the river, lies a beautiful little public garden with the obligatory name Jardin de la Nouvelle France. The public tends to walk past it and continue on to one of the many attractions in the area.
On one of my recent visits to the city, I entered the garden and found a large, magnificent monument there: it's called "A Poet's Dream," the work of Alphonse de Moncel.
The monument is in honor of the poet Alfred de Misa. It turns out that sometimes the places you come across by chance are the most charming, and there are many of them in this wonderful city, which in this respect is a bottomless pit. I highly recommend enlarging the image – you will find many more figures in the center of the rock that you hardly recognize in normal conditions.
Place Francois I
From the Nouvelle France park, cross Avenue Franklin Delano Roosevelt and go to Rue François Ier and continue until you reach this charming square.
Some of you may be wondering how King François I is being commemorated in an area he never visited (at the time, what would become the 8th arrondissement was outside the walls of Paris). The truth is that it all stems from a pretty successful hoax. A man named Colonel Brack decided to buy the area where the square is located and develop real estate there.
To impress his mistress, he demolished a 16th-century house in Moret and rebuilt it on what is now Place Albert I. Since the door had a salamander emblem on it, he said that this was the house the king had built for his mistress, the Ducéhsse d'Etamps. Of course, this house had nothing to do with the king (the house belonged to some bourgeois who had never met François I). However, his mistress believed this lie, and so did those who named the streets, since the king's name and that of his famous architect Jean Goujon have remained in the neighborhood ever since.
Dior Museum (Galerie Dior)
Just off Place François 1st you will find the Galerie Dior, a fashion museum, which opened in 2022 and is entirely dedicated to Christian Dior, one of the greatest fashion designers of the 20th century. You can read more about this museum in the article Galerie Dior Paris: Fantasy, Aesthetics and History.
Chapelle Notre-Dame de Consolation
Return to Place François 1 and walk to Rue Jean Goujon, named after the famous architect from the time of François 1. When you reach number 23 you will discover an impressive neo-Baroque church. What is the story behind it?
In 1897, a few high-society women decided to open a sort of bazaar where they would sell some of their less-loved dresses (and they had quite a few, as we know). They planned to donate the money raised to charity. However, the day after the place opened, it burned down, and more than a hundred people perished, including the Duchess of Alençon, sister of the Austrian Empress Elisabeth.
In order to preserve the memory of those who perished, it was decided to build a chapel at the site of the fire. As you can see, it is one of the most beautiful chapels in Paris, and very few people know about it, which is a shame. So if you are in the area, it is highly recommended that you go there and enter.
Address : 23 Rue Jean Goujon
Opening hours : Every day between 09:00-17:00
PS: In 2019, a mini-series called The Bonfire of Destiny was created on Netflix, which deals with this tragic event. You are invited to take a look at the “coming soon” of the series and decide whether to watch it.
Avenue Montaigne and the Champs-Elysées Theater
Continue on Jean Goujon Street to its end and there turn right and right again onto Avenue Montaigne.
The avenue is named after the famous philosopher Michel de Montaigne . However, the nickname of this avenue in the past was “Avenue of Widows” because of the “merry widows” who used to hang out there and spend their inheritance money. Today it is one of the most important fashion centers of Paris. You will find stores of all the major haute couture houses there, as well as the Plaza Athena Hotel, which serves a great afternoon tea (not cheap, but worth trying at least once in your life).
If you would like to read about Plaza Athena's tea time and know what is served there, I highly recommend reading Ruth Ofek's excellent article , from the blog "Happy in the Kitchen."
Champs-Elysees Theater
At 15 Boulevard Montaigne stands the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and it is here that perhaps the greatest theatrical scandal of the 20th century took place, which essentially heralded the arrival of modern music and dance. I am referring, of course, to the launch of “The Rite of Spring” in 1913, and you are invited to read about it in Ronit Gruman’s excellent article The Rite of Spring – The Ballet That Became Paris’s Greatest Scandal.
Since then, many of the greatest musicians have performed here, including Georg Solti, Arthur Rubinstein, and Yehudi Menuhin. And of course, we can't forget Josephine Baker , who performed here as part of the Revue Negre.
Today, the theater mainly presents concerts, and if you are interested in knowing what is being shown while you are in Paris, you are welcome to visit this link.
Address : 15 Avenue Montaigne
Crazy Horse
Another place that is not directly on Avenue Montaigne, but is a few minutes walk away, is the Crazy Horse Club.
If you are looking for an erotic cabaret , which, despite becoming a tourist attraction, remains very popular with the French, you are welcome to treat yourself and buy yourself a ticket to a show that takes place there every evening.
You are welcome to buy tickets for the show using this link . It is recommended to buy the slightly more expensive ticket (the one that includes champagne), because then you will get a better seat. Is it worth buying the ticket that includes a meal along with the show? I admit that I haven't tried it and it's hard for me to say, but my instinct says that for sixty euros (the difference between the price of the ticket with a glass of champagne and the ticket with the meal), you can have an excellent dinner somewhere else (if you are looking for recommendations, you can find them in this article ).
If you are still not sure if this show is for you, you are welcome to read my article Crazy Horse Paris – the cabaret the French go to.
Théâtre du Rond-Point
Walk north along Avenue Montaigne and look at the window shops, each sock on display is worth a night in a very reasonable hotel in Paris (but hey, it still doesn't cost anything to look). Continue until you reach the intersection where the Montaigne apartments cross the Champs-Élysées and look east. You'll see the Rond-Point Theatre, or in French, the Théâtre du Rond-Point.
This theater is located not far from the Grand Palais and is named after Louis Barrault and Madeleine Renault. This theater was built by Gabriel Davioud (1824-1891) and began its career as an ice skating rink. When Louis Barrault and his wife were expelled from the Odeon Theater, following their support of the student uprising, they came here to open their own theater (not before running their theater for several years in the building that now houses the Musée d'Orsay ).
The theater, run by the couple, was very successful and also functioned as a concert hall. However, after the couple died in 1994, it was decided to move the concerts to a larger hall. Today, the place still functions as a theater and if you want to know what is currently being shown, you are welcome to enter this link . Everyone else is welcome to come, if only to take pictures of this charming structure.
Address : 2Bis Avenue Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Hotel de la Païva
This impressive mansion is the last one left intact on the Champs-Élysées, and it is one of the most beautiful in Paris. According to legend, it was built exactly where the prostitute Therese Lachman (the future Marquise de la Païve) fell, after being thrown by one of her clients. After she recovered from the fall and got up from the road, she swore that this is where she would build a magnificent mansion when she became a rich woman – and she did. You are invited to read the story of her life and the story of the magnificent mansion in the fascinating article by Dr. Orna Lieberman La Païve: The Poor Jewess Who Became Queen of the Champs-Élysées.
Today there is a private club here, and if you would like to visit the place, you are welcome to visit this link and see when they give guided tours.
Address : 25 Av. des Champs-Élysées
Guerlain perfume store
Guerlain is one of the most famous perfume brands in French history. It was created in 1828 by Pierre Guerlain (1798-1864 Pierre-François Pascal Guerlain), who also created a special perfume for Balzac for his meeting with his mistress Madame Hanska. Guerlain reached the peak of his fame in 1853 when he invented Eau de Cologne, which became a great success thanks to the Empress Eugenie (wife of Napoleon III). The business that started on Rue Rivoli, arrived in 1914 on the Champs Elysées and has been there ever since.
Beyond the beautiful building and the fragrant richness of the place, the store has a little secret that most tourists are less aware of. If you go up to the second floor, you will discover a collection of perfumes created by the Guerlain company in honor of famous people and on personal orders. And by the way, you too can receive a personal perfume from Guerlain for the negligible sum of 25,000 euros and you can sell it under a special franchise for 100 years. Worth it, right?
Address : 68 Av. des Champs-Élysées
I got the tip about this shop from Liran Hotmacher, who does photography tours in Paris.
Arc de Triomphe
The Arc de Triomphe is the most famous project of Napoleon I and one of the most famous monuments of the City of Lights. It cannot be ignored and is the best place to view the Champs Elysées.
Please note: buying the ticket will not give you the right to go up the elevator, which is intended for the disabled and elderly. Everyone else will have to climb the stairs to enjoy the small museum at the top, and of course the amazing view from the top.
Buying a flight ticket to the Arc de Triomphe
Useful information
Address: Place Charles de Gaulle
Metro: Charles de Gaulle-Etoile
Opening days and hours: Between April and the end of September, the Arc de Triomphe is open to visitors between 10:00 AM and 23:00 PM. During the other months, the Arc de Triomphe is open until 22:30 PM.
Shopping on the Champs Elysees
And further to what I wrote about Guerlain, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the Champs-Elysées today is mainly a huge shopping center. In my opinion, it is quite a waste of quality time in Paris. But if you still insist on visiting stores such as Sephora or H&M, you are welcome to read the comprehensive article by Joel Tamenlis, Shopping in Paris – The Complete Guide . And by the way, if you feel like continuing to waste your time on this avenue, you are also welcome to go see a movie at the Gaumont Cinema , one of the most sophisticated and impressive in Paris.
Shops on the Champs Elysees
In the past, the Champs Elysees was an avenue for luxury shopping only. There is no doubt that it is still an expensive shopping area, with top brands such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel and more, but there are also shops for the common people, if you wish, such as large fashion chains and other “regular” stores. Here are some of the shops in the Champs Elysees area:
This may not be the reason you went to Paris, but H&M is also on the Champs-Élysées, and it is located at 88 Av. des Champs-Élysées.
You can also find Fnac , a huge French retail chain that sells a variety of products, including electronics and music, stationery, appliances and much more. The store is located at 74 Av. des Champs-Élysées.
On the Champs-Élysées you can also find a Celio branch , at 146-150 Av. des Champs-Élysées. This is a French men's fashion brand, with stores all over the world. You can also find a Nike branch , at 79 Av. des Champs-Élysées. Not far from Nike, there is also a Levi 's store , at number 76. Competitors, Adidas , are located at number 22, with an impressive flagship store. You can find children's clothing on the Champs-Élysées at the Petit Bateau store , at number 116 on the avenue.
Jewelry lovers will find a Swarovski store on the Champs-Élysées, at 146 Av. des Champs-Élysées. A Swatch watch store is located at 104 Av. des Champs-Élysées, 75008 Paris. If you are into computers and electronics, you will surely be happy to visit the Apple store , located at 114 on the avenue.
At 86 Av. des Champs-Élysées is 86Champs – L'Occitane x Pierre Hermé , a luxury concept store for cosmetics and skincare products. There are creams, perfumes and a host of not-so-cheap treats here. At number 102 is Yves Rocher , a French cosmetics brand that specializes in plant-based products.
Paris Saint-Germain fans will surely be happy to discover that there is a dedicated store for the football team's merchandise, at 92 avenue des Champs-Élysées.
A particularly cute shop, located not far from the boulevard, at 128 Rue La Boétie, is Handsome Bunny shop . It is a sweet shop for pet accessories, with special and personal designs.
Looking for more information about the Champs Elysées?
If you liked this itinerary and you want to get to know the Champs Elysees better and perhaps live there, you are invited to visit the Champs Elysees - Traveler Information page , where you will find recommendations, itineraries, and more.
More on the subject
Thank you Zvi. I enjoyed reading and was also educated.
Thanks for the support 🙂
And it's worth emphasizing the beauty of the avenue before and after Christmas. Don't miss it.
Thank you very much Zvi! Excellent article as usual!
Thank you very much Zvi,
I enjoyed reading you and traveling with you through my childhood neighborhoods again. I love the Champs-Elysées and all the points of interest there. For those who are coming for the first time, it is definitely worth noting the famous avenue of lights, if only to understand the historical respect. Marcel Proust is one of my favorite writers, as is Joe Dassin, whom you mentioned and whom I grew up with. Paris is stunning at any time.
As a Francophile and an avid reader of your articles, I partially agree with your opinion about the famous avenue. I had the opportunity to visit it about 40 years ago when I was a young girl. Indeed, there was a different atmosphere. An atmosphere of luxury, of culture and the pinnacle of Parisianness.
Today, the avenue has become commercial, full of tourists, and overpriced cafes, but still, when you visit Paris, you don't miss a visit to the Champs-Élysées. I believe and hope that the avenue will return to its glory days.
It's been a long time since I've been here, but I remember not understanding what the deal was with those avenues. I really enjoyed reading it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for the in-depth review – incredibly interesting (and the link to the Paris stores is also inviting..) If you don't live in this wonderful city, there is never enough time..so the few days will certainly not be wasted on the Champs-Elysees..
Thank you Zvi, great article.
Thank you very much for the support 🙂
Where is there a special clock on the avenue that I saw in an alley years ago??
The truth is, I don't remember such a watch there (maybe I missed it). Can you provide a little more information about it?
At the end of the avenue there is a passage with a special clock inside.
We are in Paris for the first time. We eagerly read the article and today we will visit the Champs Elysees, according to your instructions. Thank you very much, it was very interesting and we hope to enjoy it, although, as the article reflects, it is no longer what it used to be. (Like many other things).
Thank you very much. I'm sure you'll enjoy it despite everything 🙂
deer,
Great article!
It is a pleasure to read and stimulate thought and memory in everything related to this magical city.
Thank you very much 🙂
Hello Turtle,
Jardin de la Nouvelle France is not on Google Maps.
PLEASE CHECK HM AND PSG
All the material: the photographs and the explanations – pure pleasure.
Thank you
Thank you very much 🙂
Lovely, I loved it so much
Even in writing you can feel your love.
To Paris and France
A pleasure to read your articles.
Thank you very much 🙂