The route
of our restaurant cruises

Paris’s most majestic bridge is a symbol of the Belle Époque, with its four golden Pegasuses reaching for the sky and candelabras illuminating the City of Light. It was built in honor of Franco-Russian friendship, and bears the name of Alexander III, father of Nicholas II, the last Russian star, who laid the foundation stone. Today, the world of fashion and luxury often features him as the embodiment of French elegance.

Built for the 1900 Universal Exhibition, the Grand Palais has always hosted major cultural events. Its spectacular glass roof, renovated for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, makes it one of the jewels of the City of Light.

Created by Louis XIV, the Sun King, for war invalids, the Hôtel des Invalides houses the tomb of Emperor Napoleon 1st under its gilded dome.

A former railway station transformed into a museum, it houses an extraordinary collection of works by Monet, Renoir, Courbet, Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec. At the Musée d’Orsay, apples and cherries are on the menu in Manet’s “Déjeuner sur l’herbe”, with the mysterious nude woman amidst the robed guests.

At Place de la Concorde, the tip of the Luxor Obelisk, a gift from the Viceroy of Egypt, shines down from the Seine on the right bank. During the French Revolution, King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette were guillotined on the square. The Concorde Bridge was built in part from Bastille stones.

Opposite the Place de la Concorde on the Left Bank, you’ll discover the columns of the Palais Bourbon, home to the 577 members of the French National Assembly.

The Louvre was first home to the kings of France, from Philippe Auguste to the Sun King, Louis XIV, who transferred it to the Château de Versailles. As a child, the future Louis XIII walked his dromedary in the 460 m long Grande Galerie along the Seine. Transformed into a museum during the French Revolution, it is now the most visited museum in the world. We enter through the pyramid, built in 1989. Masterpieces include the Venus de Milo, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Guiding the People and the Victory of Samothrace.

The Pont des Arts links the Institut de France to the square courtyard of the Louvre. The Immortals of the Académie Française sit under the dome. Romantics also call the Pont des Arts the lovers’ bridge.

The Parisii, a Gallic people, gave their name to Paris. The Ile de la Cité is the historic heart of the capital, with Notre-Dame de Paris, the Sainte Chapelle and the Conciergerie.

We owe the Pont-Neuf to Henry IV, proudly enthroned on his horse at the tip of the Ile de la Cité, and to Marie de Médicis, his queen, the use of the fork at table. The 381 sculpted faces, known as mascarons, are thought to represent Henri IV’s courtiers, unless this is a legend.

Notre-Dame de Paris was saved on several occasions:
Destroyed during the French Revolution, as barrels of wine taken from aristocrats were stored here.
From abandonment by Victor Hugo, whose famous novel “Notre-Dame de Paris” led to the complete restoration of the cathedral by Viollet-le-Duc, who added the spire overhanging the transept.
And from the fire by the Paris firefighters who saved it during the great fire of 2019.

The Pont de la Tournelle, linking Ile Saint Louis to the Left Bank, proudly bears the statue of Sainte-Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris. In 451, faced with the threatening army of the terrible Attila the Hun, she asked Parisians not to abandon their city. The Huns eventually turned their backs on Paris.

On the left bank of the Pont de la Tournelle, you’ll find the prestigious Tour d’Argent restaurant, so named because the first tower had a stone with a silvery sheen. The current building dates from 1936. More than four centuries of history for this Mecca of French gastronomy and its famous “duck in blood”. Each duck is numbered. La Tour d’Argent celebrated its millionth duck in 2003.

Created to promote cultural dialogue between the Arab states and France, the Institut du Monde Arabe is also famous for its architecture, which combines Western culture with Arab architectural elements, notably the 240 moucharabiehs. Used as ventilation devices in Arab architecture, at the IMA they are used to filter light in order to reduce energy consumption.

For most of the year, Parisians for a day and Parisians for ever enjoy the banks of the Seine for a drink, a picnic or a couple’s tango, salsa or rock dance. They can be admired on the left bank after the Sully bridge.

Also known as Les Docks, it can be recognized by the green exoskeleton added to the concrete structure of the former general stores. It is home to the Institut Français de la Mode.

Reserved for “soft mobility”, pedestrians and cyclists, the Simone-de-Beauvoir footbridge is unique in that, by passing over the road, it provides direct access to the Bercy park on the right bank and to the forecourt of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France on the left bank, as well as to the banks of the Seine. It is the 37th and last bridge built in Paris.

The four buildings framing the “Grande Bibliothèque” symbolize books. Founded in 1537, the BNF is the heir to the royal collections and has one of the richest collections in the world. With legal deposit, it archives everything published in France. The BNF boasts a stunning interior garden planted with pine trees.

The modern building with one foot in the Seine is the Ministry of Finance, built in 1988. The gray shuttles take you to the Assemblée Nationale via the Seine. Bercy has historically been a wine warehouse district. Vines are still grown in Paris: Sauvignon in Bercy, Chardonnay in Belleville, Gamay in Montmartre.

The romantic Ile Saint-Louis was created by bringing together two natural islands: Ile aux Vaches and Ile Notre-Dame. Its inhabitants are known as Ludoviciens.

The Pont Marie links the Ile Saint-Louis to the right bank. Passing under the Marie Bridge, lovers can make their wish come true by kissing each other with eyes closed.

The Nautes or bargemen’s guild was responsible for trade on the Seine. They administered the town’s affairs from this location from 1357 onwards. The boat on the coat of arms of Paris and its motto “Fluctuat Nec Mergitur” (“It is beaten by the waves, but does not sink”) come from the Nautes. The Place de Grève, formerly located in front of the town hall, gave its name to the practice of strikes (Grève in French), as men gathered there to find work. The current building was rebuilt after the fire of 1871 during the Paris Commune.

The Conciergerie is a former royal residence transformed into a courthouse and prison. The four towers date from the Middle Ages and the facades from the 19th century. During the French Revolution, 2,780 prisoners were incarcerated, tried and sentenced, and later executed by guillotine. It takes its name from the king’s concierge, who was the keeper of the keys and administrator of the medieval palace on the Ile de la Cité.

The Hôtel de Salm houses the Palais de la Légion d’Honneur, created by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802. Thomas Jefferson, the third American president, discovered it when he was posted as ambassador to Paris. With its rotunda overlooking the Seine, it inspired the architecture of the White House and the Oval Office.

The Zouave on the Pont de l’Alma is visible during the cruise as the boat heads towards the Eiffel Tower. The statue stands on the pier of the old bridge on the right bank. Famous for his goatee, he tells Parisians how high the Seine is, as in 2016, when the water came almost up to his waist.

An exact replica of the Statue of Liberty, the Flame of Liberty, offered in return to the French, is installed in Place Diana. It has spontaneously become a place of remembrance for admirers of the Princess of Wales, Lady Di, who was fatally injured in the Alma bridge tunnel in 1997.

In June, the Dîner Blanc brings together several thousand guests dressed in white for a chic picnic announced at the last minute. It has already taken place on the Pont des Arts, the parvis de Notre-Dame, the Louvre Pyramid, the Champs-Elysées and the Eiffel Tower. He also exports abroad: New York, Berlin, Tokyo.

The Trocadero Gardens will host the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Athletes from all over the world will gather there to take their oaths of office after a parade along the Seine. From the Trocadero esplanade, the Parvis des Droits de l’Homme offers a spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower and the Seine.

Installed on Ile aux Cygnes, an artificial island created in 1825, the Statue of Liberty sculpted by Auguste Bartholdi is a replica (11.50 m) of the one (46 m) offered by the French people to the Americans in 1886. The American Committee in Paris offered it back to France for the centenary of the French Revolution.

The Bir-Hakeim bridge crosses Ile aux Cygnes. It carries the Passy viaduct used by the aerial metro to cross the Seine. With its exceptional view of the Eiffel Tower, it welcomes fashion shoots and film shoots all year round.

Built for the 1889 Universal Exhibition, the Eiffel Tower was to be dismantled twenty years later, but was eventually transformed into a giant transmitter, first for radio, then for television, before becoming the emblem of Paris the world over. Gustave Eiffel built the tower with engineers Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier.

Its design is the work of architect Stephen Sauvestre. In 1925, Victor Lustig became “the man who sold the Eiffel Tower”. The scrap dealer André Poisson bought the tower by weight before discovering the scam. The Eiffel Tower is 330 m high, following the addition of an antenna in 2022. The gold lighting dates back to 1985, and the sparkle and lighthouse to 2000. The tower is illuminated in the colors of the news at every event of global importance. As you’ll discover on the Diner Cruise, the Eiffel Tower illuminates Paris with its spectacular lights. An unforgettable spectacle to immortalize during your cruise on the Seine.