Paris · self-guided
A self-guided walking tour of Paris where you do the looking.
A self-guided walking tour of Paris with puzzles
No guide, no group, no headset, no 10 AM meeting point. You open a link on your phone at the École Militaire and walk one straight line to the Trocadéro. At each of six sites something is claimed with great confidence, and you find out whether it is true by looking at what is in front of you.
How it works
- One ticket per team of one to five. A link arrives by email; nothing to install.
- Go to the first site whenever suits you. The walk starts when you open the link there.
- At each site, read what is in front of you: a plinth, a rider, a bridge, an inscription. Answer, and the next site and the next piece of the story open.
- Three hints per puzzle. Skip a site if you must; you still get its story.
- About 2.5 km and two hours at your own pace. Stop for coffee. Pick it up again. Switch phones with your code.
The six sites
- École Militaire and Place Joffre a king's school and a marshal on horseback
- Monument des Droits de l'Homme the 1989 pavilion on the Champ de Mars
- Pont d'Iéna Napoleon's bridge and its four stone riders · the free stop
- Fontaine de Varsovie the 1937 water mirror and its cannons
- Chaillot esplanade the view the palace was built around
- Place du Trocadéro Marshal Foch, looking back down the line
The same six sights without the game: the walk guide.
Two stories, one route
- Seine Clearly: The ARIA Calibration
- For anyone from about 12 up. ARIA has read 38 petabytes and never seen a city; you are her human calibration partner. Trail guide.
- Paris, Probably
- For two. The same sites and puzzles, told as a gloriously wrong romantic guidebook you correct together. About this edition.
Try it first
Both Paris trails are opening soon. The Pont d'Iéna stop, among the four stone riders a few minutes from the Tower, is free to play today: fifteen minutes, no ticket, no sign-up.