New Europe offers free walking tours all over Europe. They typically last between two to two and a half hours and are meant to be an introduction to the city.

I recently went on the New Europe Paris Tour. Here is my review of the tour and what you can expect if you go on one yourself.

“When I found out there was one in Paris, just days before my trip, I immediately signed up and was excited to go. For a student on a budget, a FREE tour is perfect.” 

Getting Started

From the minute you sign up, they make the experience enjoyable and customer friendly. They email you the ticket and give you the option to download it right to your phone; I added mine to my Apple Wallet. There’s no hassle of printing out a hard copy!

They also make the meeting point very clear and they say to look for someone either with a red umbrella or a red backpack. Finally, every tour guide has a red name tag that says New Europe on the lanyard.

Experience

The Paris tour is offered in both English and Spanish. I obviously picked the English tour group. The free tour runs every day, rain or shine. For my tour, our guide was named Harry. He was one of the best tour guides I’ve ever had. He was extremely energetic, fun, and knowledgeable. He told us that since this is a free tour he does not get paid, but this allows him to give whatever kind of tour he wants. He picks where we go, what information he tells us, etc. To me, that was the best part.

Harry took us to many famous spots in Paris including Notre Dame, the Palace of Justice, Assemblée Nationale, the Louvre and more. The one place I wish we had gone was the Eiffel Tower, however, I learned throughout my time in Paris that it is a little out of the way from all the other famous places.

At each stop on the tour, Harry would stop and explain the importance of that place itself and its historical relationship to Paris. I felt like I learned so much about Paris and France as a whole throughout this tour. It wasn’t like a boring history lecture, but rather someone telling me an exciting story.

After the tour ended, we had the opportunity to go with Harry to a nearby cafe where they sold discounted tickets to other tours in and around Paris. He also was willing to give everyone recommendations on places to eat, shop, etc. I tagged along and wound up signing up for another New Europe tour–a paid one–and a river cruise. Harry also gave me a recommendation for a restaurant for dinner and a place to get coffee.

How to Book

Even though it is a FREE walking tour you can still book your spot in advance on the SANDEMAN’s New Europe Tours Website. You can probably also just turn up at the meeting point but you may find that there is no availability. With limited time to spend in a city, it is better just to book!

For the moment Campus Florence has no affiliation with Sandeman’s New Europe Tours. We have not received any kind of compensation for writing this post. Everything written above is from the first hand experience of Gracie Cooper who is currently an intern at Campus Florence.