French Links Themed History Tours

As a 2,000 year-old city that is the size of Manhattan, Paris offers a variety of unique architectural and historical experiences. French Links Tours makes it possible for you to discover the city on foot with a private expert guide who can trace the city from the Roman conquest by Julius Caesar to the Medieval palaces and Gothic cathedrals to the literary haunts of the Left and Right Banks. While you can definitely learn about the unique architecture of the Arch of Triumph, the Opéra Garnier and the Sainte Chapelle, our guides can also show you the avant-garde Bercy district, one of Europe's noted incubators for contemporary cutting-edge architecture. And for those of you who wish to take photos that are original and memorable, your personal photography guide will assist in the creation of unforgettable photos.

The history and architecture of Paris is best seen on foot. Our walking tours are ideal for visitors used to strolling in a big city. However, we also offer the possibility of discovering the treasures of Paris on bicycle with a trained guide, or by car, if you have difficulty walking long distances. Our standard tours are either half-day or full-day tours, but can also be adapted to your specific schedule.

Our Guides

We work only with trained, experienced guides, who are either university-educated native English speakers or French national guides who speak flawless English. Both have the people skills to make Americans and other English-speakers feel at home in France. Our multilingual guides also have fluency in Spanish, Italian, Russian, German and Chinese, both Mandarin and Cantonese.

For further information about tours please contact Ms. Kaplan by completing our Tour Request Form or email contact@frenchlinks.com.

Our Tours

Discover Parisian roots of American Independence!

In 1789, the French revolutionaries appointed the Marquis de Lafayette to oversee the dismantling that symbol of oppression, the Bastille. As thanks for the United States' libertarian influence on the French uprising, Lafayette sent a set of Bastille keys, via Tom Paine, to President Washington. They are still at his home in Mt. Vernon, Virginia, to this day! But Lafayette himself had earlier fought on the insurgents' side during the American Revolution and France helped the Americans in many other ways as well.

Among highlights of this tour are: the headquarters of that early "Iran-Contra" effort (whose C.E.O. was Caron de Beaumarchais, and this is where he wrote The Marriage of Figaro), the homes of Tom Paine and John Paul Jones, a café much frequented by Ben Franklin (who because of the scientific experiments he carried out in Paris was the first American invited to join the French Academy), the stately building that inspired Thomas Jefferson to build Monticello, and the then-residence of London's Ambassador to France where, on September 3rd 1783, the British formally signed a treaty recognizing American Independence.

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Secrets of the Eiffel Tower

Symbol of Paris and the French Revolution, the Eiffel Tower ranks among the most visited monuments in the world, with over 7 million visitors a year. Happily, thanks to our exclusive VIP tour, you no longer have to wait on line to get into the tower, and you will be able to see parts of this unique feat of engineering that are normally closed off to the general public. Accompanied by a specialist guide, you will be able to penetrate inside the astonishing machine room and discover the original hydraulic system that still runs the elevators to this day. You will also see the underground bunker hidden beneath the Champ de Mars, and walk inside the technical gallery of the first level that affords an exceptional view of the Esplanade below, including the Ecole Militaire and the Palais de Chaillot. (This tour is ideal for families, and groups of up to 20 guests).

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Turn Your Pictures of Paris Into Art

Now you have the chance to capture your own private Paris in unique photographs with one of the city’s most acclaimed and talented young photographers. You will not only discover a Paris that is truly off the beaten path, but you will even have photos of your favourite monuments that are truly unique and unforgettable. You can book your photographer for a few hours, a half-day, a full-day or more, and 24 hours later fly home with a CD that will impress both your friends and family. (This tour is ideal for families and groups of up to 20 guests).

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The Ultimate French Links Tour Lets You Meet The French

Have you ever felt like you never had a chance to meet and interact with Parisians apart from the people who work in your hotel and serve you in restaurants? Now, all that has changed thanks to our new private tours in Belleville, Montmartre and Montparnasse, which give you an opportunity to meet artists and artisans, fashion and floral designers, as well as other Parisians, who are eager to show you their world and their work. This is the Paris with a human face, waiting to be discovered. Book this tour early because it is quite popular! (This tour is ideal for families and groups of up to 12 guests. Larger groups have to be divided).

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Liberation Tour of Paris

Your expert guide covers that glorious week's political and military highlights and anecdotes - some serious, others wildly funny - pinpointing along the way how Hemingway liberated the cellars at the Ritz, how the German high command von Choltitz was persuaded to save Paris from destruction, and how the city's police headquarters became the launchpad for the city's liberation. This tour is a walk-through of events and people that, chaotically but successfully, saved the City of Light. On our full day tour, you will visit the Museum of the Order of the Liberation and the Invalides' new exhibition on the history of World War II.

This tour was cited in an op-ed page article that ran in The Wall Street Journal in August 2005 in both the US and European editions.

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In the Footsteps of Marie-Antoinette Tour

Now that Sophia Coppola has directed Marie-Antoinette, Versailles has opened up parts of her royal domain, never seen before by the public. You will now have a chance to visit the Queen's hamlet where she made butter and cheese, her theatre, where she starred as Rosine in the Barber of Seville as her own maids looked on, and walk to the Temple of Love, where she held her secret trysts. You will also visit the Petit and Grand Trianon, and can organize this visit around a morning tour of the Conciergerie, where she spent her final days before going to the guillotine.

An array of objects on display work toward the goal of presenting the totality of a royal life that began in grandeur and ended in tragedy. An early manifestation of celebrity status is shown in the overwhelming number of images of the Dauphine escaping the gilded fetters of her Viennese courtly upbringing and her new French royal life. There is Marie-Antoinette careering on horseback through the grounds of Versailles, and the future queen, first as a pink-cheeked, blue-eyed ingénue, then as a formal court figure. Finally the Dauphine is painted, rose in hand, by Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun in the first portrait to catch her true likeness, the young girl told her mother, Marie-Therese, the archduchess of Austria, whom Marie-Antoinette never saw again after she left her home at age 14.

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In the Footsteps of Napoleon and Joséphine

Follow France's most infamous couple around Paris, from the Château de Malmaison to the Invalides in the heart of Paris.

Malmaison is a 16th Century château, bought in 1799 by Joséphine Bonaparte who was looking for an estate on the edge of Paris. The couple called in the young architects Percier and Fontaine, who transformed the old building into a unique example of elegance and refinement.

The Hôtel des Invalides, founded by Louis XIV to shelter 7,000 aged or crippled formed soldiers.

In the chapels of Saint-Louis are the tombs of Napoleon's brothers Joseph and Jérôme, of his son (whose body was returned from Vienna in 1940 by Adolf Hitler), and of the marshals of France. Immediately beneath the cupola is a red porphyry sarcophagus that covers the six coffins enclosing the body of Napoleon I, which was returned from Saint-Helena in 1840 through the efforts of King Louis-Philippe. Napoleon's uniforms, personal arms, and death bed are displayed in the rich Musée de l'Armée (Army Museum) at the front of the Invalides. Fewer than 100 pensioners now live at the hospital, which is used as a paraplegic centre.

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Paris Through the Middle Ages

With our expert guide, you will visit the famous St. Germain des Prés Church and Abbey Palace, the 13th century Cordeliers monk's refectory and the 15th century Cluny Abbot's mansion and garden, now devoted to the history, art and horticulture of the Middle Ages. You will also discover the Tower of Jean Sans Peur, which is noted for its unique exhibitions on Medieval life, including on food, education and warfare. Our guide can also show you the Medieval origins of the Louvre, with the original foundations commissioned by Philip Augustus and his grandson Charles V, and the newly opened Chateau de Vincennes, the largest fortified castle in Western Europe.

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Revolutionary Paris Tour

You want to walk in the footsteps of Marie-Antoinette before she was beheaded? You'd like to see the contorted face of the executioner Fouquier-Tinville or the snarling head of Robespierre? Or better yet see the list of victims during the Terror, the keys that were used to lock up the Bastille and the jail cells for rich and for the poor? Then come on a tour of Revolutionary Paris, to the haunted Conciergerie Palace, the Tuileries Gardens and the Palais-Royal where Camille Desmoulins first shouted, standing on a café table, "To the Bastille!"

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Jewish Paris Tour

Explore and learn the history and culture of the world's fourth largest Jewish community through a fascinating tour of the Marais, the Jewish Documentation Center and Holocaust Memorial, the Museum of Jewish Art and History, the synagogues of Hector Guimard and Gustave Eiffel, as well as the splendid Nissim de Camondo Museum. We will also introduce you to the best schawarma and felafel this side of Tel Aviv. Art lovers can discover the studio and home of Ossip Zadkine and the Montparnasse Museum – home of the School of Paris: Chagall, Soutine, Modigliani...

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Literary Paris Tour

Everyone knows that Paris is the world's leading mecca for writers and always has been. Our literary tour takes you to the legends of the past, including the homes of Victor Hugo on the Place des Vosges, the apartment of Honoré de Balzac in Passy, where he spent his waking hours editing The Human Comedy, or the Museum of Romantic Life, where you'll discover the domestic and writing life of George Sand. Along the way, you'll see where Hemingway wrote The Sun Also Rises and where James Joyce published Ulysses, the studio where Gertrude Stein held literary court and the elegant apartment where Edith Wharton wrote Ethan Frome, the book that earned her place in the American Academy of Letters.

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A Woman's History Tour In and Around Paris

Explore the city that women built, fought for and wrote about: the church of Saint-Stephen of the Mount, where you'll find the tomb of the city's patron saint Geneviève, who saved the city from Attila the Hun; the Luxembourg Gardens and Fountains of Queen Marie de Médicis; the mansion of Henri II's illegitimate daughter Diane de France and the home where feminist George Sand used to visit with Chopin. Or visit the museum founded by Auguste Maillol's model Dina Vierny, where you'll discover the great Modernist painters, as well as the entire oeuvre of Maillol himself. Outside of Paris, we will visit Malmaison, the home of Josephine both as wife and divorcée, the studio of painter Rosa Bonheur, as well as the country estate of Nélie Jacquemart-André, the single most important woman art collector of her time.

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Père Lachaise: The World's Most Famous Cemetery

With our expert guide, you will be able to discover the lives and tombs of some of the most famous personalities of the 19th and 20th centuries including Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Frederic Chopin, and Sarah Bernhardt, not to mention Balzac, Heloise and Abelard. You will also see some of the extravagant funeral monuments ever built, including one by a man who is still awaiting his final hour!

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Paris Underground: The Sewer Museum and the Catacombs

With our expert guide, you will have a chance to learn the history of Paris sewers and see how they are cleaned daily at the unique Sewer Museum or Musée des Egouts. You will be very surprised to discover how clean Paris is and that you don't have to hold your nose in this unique venue! And for those of you who wish to see the skulls and bones of Frenchmen dating back to the French Revolution and earlier, a visit to the Paris Catacombs is in order, where you will certainly see some of the strangest exhibits since Halloween. Both these tours are ideal for families; your kids will be especially delighted to discover this side of Paris!

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Relive D-Day on our Normandy Beaches Tour

On June 6, 1944 to the great astonishment of the German enemy who were prepared for an Allied landing to take place across the Straits of Dover, five seaborne assaults, Omaha and Utah beach at 6:30am, Gold at 7:25am, Sword at 7:30am and Juno at 7:55am were the beginning of the biggest land invasion of World War Two, bringing 150,000 troops and 20,000 vehicles ashore.

The Battle of Normandy, or what is commonly known as D-Day, which would lead to the end of the war, had only just begun. Our tour relives those extraordinary and consequential hours, as we drive along the historic Normandy coastline, stopping along the way to view the recorded highlights of these events: After your arrival in Normandy from Paris, you will begin your historic journey with a visit to Pegasus Bridge, one of the three most famous bridges in World War II, captured by Major John Howard and his gliderborne company in a tour-de-force operation. You will then drive to Arromanches to visit the remains of the artificial harbour, built by the Allied Forces in less than 15 days and watch a 360° movie that allows you to relive the feelings of the young and brave Allied soliders during the first hours of D-Day. After lunch in a typical Norman-style restaurant, you will visit the moving American Cemetery of Saint Laurent sur Mer and its stunning new information center inaugurated in 2007, as well as Omaha Beach where so many young Americans lost their lives. The tour concludes at the visually spectacular Pointe du Hoc, where Colonel James Rudder and his Rangers fought valiantly with their men against great odds…

Altogether an unforgettable day that gives a new dimension to Steven Spielberg’s movie Saving Private Ryan.

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