Paris 2024 Olympics Venues Guide

Planning to head to the Paris Olympics this summer? Not sure where the action’s at or when it starts? Don’t know your Champs de Mars from your Château de Versailles?

By <a href="#author-bio">Stuart Bak</a>
By Stuart Bak
Published: July 18, 2024
Gargoyle at Notre-Dame Cathedral overlooking the Paris skyline

The first thing you need to know is that much of the action will be taking place in and around Paris’s historic monuments and landmarks, taking advantage of iconic attractions like the Eiffel Tower, Pont Alexandre III and Trocadéro rather than relying on the more traditional (and dare we say dull) stadiums normally favored by Olympic hosts. And why not? Opportunities to showcase your city’s iconic attractions to a global audience of millions don’t come along very often. Nor do they come much bigger than the Olympic Games, which are expected to attract upwards of 15 million sports fans to the city alone during their four-week run. Read on for the lowdown…

Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony

The Paris Games kick off with a suitably bombastic opening ceremony on July 26th, with the games themselves running for a little over two weeks, until August 11th. The Paralympic Games follow later in the month, with events taking place between August 28th and September 8th.

Breaking with traditional Olympic opening ceremonies, the Paris spectacular will take the form of a parade, running for six kilometers along the Seine between the Jardin de Tuileries and Trocadéro plaza, with separate boats for each national delegation. Access to the upper quays along the river will be free of charge, but tickets are required to get closer to the action along the lower quays. Expect music, fireworks, live entertainment and an utterly thrilling, once-in-a-lifetime atmosphere.

Paris 2024 Olympics: Venues In and Around Town

Woman running among pigeons at the Trocadéro in Paris

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the majority of Olympic venues (20 out of the 35) will be located in and around central Paris, with 13 of those slap-bang in the city center itself. Here’s the lowdown on the ones to watch…

Top City-Center Olympic Venues

Marathon swimmer
  • Champ de Mars Arena: this temporary open-air stadium boasts perhaps the finest backdrop of them all. Here’s where epic beach volleyball and blind football battles will play out in the shadow of the mighty Eiffel Tower.
  • Place de la Concorde: urban sports rule the roost here on Paris’s largest public square, where the likes of Robespierre, Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI faced the guillotine during the French Revolution. Let’s hope these modern practitioners of basketball, freestyle BMX, skateboarding and breaking (aka breakdancing, appearing at an Olympic Games for the first time) don’t lose their heads.
  • Grand Palais: this glass-roofed Paris icon was built for the 1900 Universal Exhibition and will this year host fencing and taekwondo events across the Olympics and Paralympics.
Les Invalides in Paris
  • Esplanade des Invalides: home to Louis XIV’s flamboyant Dôme des Invalides. Paris’s tallest church, no less, Les Invalides is where it's at for fans of archery, athletics and cycling.
  • Hôtel de Ville: the extraordinary facade of this neo-renaissance confection provides a suitably grand backdrop to the start of the Olympics’ longest event: the marathon.
  • Trocadéro: not only does this riverside district boast glorious gardens, monumental fountains and some of the best views of the Eiffel Tower in town, it’s also where you can catch road cycling, triathlon and more at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.
  • Pont Alexandre III: this magnificently ornate bridge provides a suitably regal setting for triathlon, road cycling and marathon swimming events.

Top Olympic Venues Elsewhere in Paris

Roland-Garros Stadium
  • Roland-Garros Stadium: best known as the legendary venue of the French Open, the stadium will host boxing as well as tennis for the Olympics.
  • Bercy Arena: this peculiar pyramidal structure, with its sloping grass-covered walls, is the place to catch basketball, trampoline and athletics events.
  • Parc des Princes: no we haven’t forgotten you, football fans! The iconic home of Paris Saint Germain will play host to football preliminaries and finals during the Olympics, with the remaining games taking place in Bordeaux, Nantes, Lyon, Saint-Etienne, Nice and Marseille.
Woman celebrating a medal win
  • Porte de la Chapelle Arena: put this brand-new complex in the 18th arrondissement on your list if badminton, para badminton, rhythmic gymnastics or para powerlifting are your bag. 
  • Aquatics Centre: located in Saint-Denis opposite the Stade de France, this is the only permanent sports facility built specifically for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games. Catch swimming, diving and water polo events here.
  • Stade de France: the country’s largest stadium, built for the 1998 Football World Cup (which France won), is called back into service for rugby, athletics and para athletics events at the Paris Games.

Paris 2024 Olympics: Venues Beyond Paris

If you’re football mad, you’ll likely want to tour the country to get to the various stadiums hosting matches throughout the tournament, but it’s not all just football, football, football outside of Paris. There’s golf, mountain biking, track biking, shooting and more going on at Olympic venues across France…

Top Olympic Venues Outside Paris

Mountain biker in action
  • Palace of Versailles: the ostentatious château at the heart of Louis XIV’s court will become one of the Paris Olympics’ most picturesque settings when the Etoile Royale esplanade in the palace gardens hosts Olympic and Paralympic equestrian events and modern pentathlon this summer. They’re just the kind of showily extravagant sporting activities that ol’ Louis himself might have approved of.
  • Les Yvelines: experience all the two-wheeled thrills and spills you could ever need, with BMXing, track cycling and para cycling all on the roster at Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Vélodrome, and mountain biking over at Elancourt Hill.
  • Golf National: having previously hosted the French Open and Ryder Cup, it’s now the turn of the Paris 2024 Olympics, which will see world-class swingers try their luck against the fiendishly tricky L’Albatros course.
  • Châteauroux CNTS Shooting Centre: the clue’s in the name. Here’s where all the shooting finals will take place, including pistol and rifle shooting.
View of Marseille
  • Bordeaux Stadium et al: hosts of the Olympic football heats include Bordeaux, Nice, Marseille, Lyon, La Beaujoire in Nantes and Geoffrey-Guichard in Saint-Etienne.
  • Pierre-Mauroy Stadium: for a different kind of ball-play, this Lille legend is where it’s at for all things basketball and handball.
  • Marseille Marina: you shouldn’t need an excuse to visit beautiful Marseille in the summertime. But if you did, the 2024 Olympic sailing events will surely fit the bill, bringing a festival atmosphere to the already-lively Roucas-Blanc Marina.

Which brings us to the end of our almost-comprehensive guide to the venues of the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics. For more information on all the venues taking part, check out the official Olympics website.

Save on Attractions, Tours and Activities in Paris

Save on admission to Paris attractions with Go City. Check out @GoCity on Instagram for the latest top tips and attraction info.

Stuart Bak
Stuart Bak
Freelance travel writer

Stu caught the travel bug at an early age, thanks to childhood road trips to the south of France squeezed into the back of a Ford Cortina with two brothers and a Sony Walkman. Now a freelance writer living on the Norfolk coast, Stu has produced content for travel giants including Frommer’s, British Airways, Expedia, Mr & Mrs Smith, and now Go City. His most memorable travel experiences include drinking kava with the locals in Fiji and pranging a taxi driver’s car in the Honduran capital.

Continue reading

Paris
Blog

Neighborhoods in Paris

Paris is a dense patchwork of 20 distinct neighborhoods, or arrondissements, all within the périphérique (ring road). Each arrondissement has its own identity and dedicated postcode (75001 for the 1st arrondissement, 75002 for the 2nd, and so on), to make it easier to discover at a glance where the hotel, attraction or other address you’re looking for is located. Hop aboard for our whistle-stop tour of all 20... 1st Arrondissement Right in the heart of the action, the premier is home to a number of Paris’s big-ticket attractions, chief among these being the Louvre. Stroll through the delightful Jardin des Tuileries with its tree-lined avenues, riverside views and graceful Rodin statues, and drop by the Musée de l’Orangerie in its southwest corner to admire the fine collection of Impressionist art, including several of Monet’s famous Water Lilies murals. 2nd Arrondissement Treasure hunters rejoice! Here’s where you’ll find many of Paris’s historic covered passages, including Passages des Panoramas, the city’s oldest. Shop under beautiful glass canopies in these atmospheric 19th-century arcades, where you’ll discover all manner of antiques tucked away behind old-fashioned wooden storefronts, plus chic boutiques, cute cafés, well-stocked wine cellars and more. The sticky signature rum babas at Stohrer, Paris’s oldest pâtisserie, on the nearby Rue Montorgueil are also not to be missed. 3rd Arrondissement The Haut Marais district’s quaint cobbled streets are lined with independent boutiques and several top museums, including the Musée des Arts et Métiers and stunning Musée Picasso, where you can view over 700 paintings and surreal sculptures by the Cubist master, including his Self-Portrait and La Celestina. Pause at the gift shop before strolling to the Marché des Enfants Rouges for some of the best street food in town. 4th Arrondissement Overlooking Notre-Dame Cathedral from the Seine’s Right Bank, the Marais neighborhood’s maze of narrow streets is nothing short of enchanting. Take a picnic to the formal gardens in Place des Vosges and people-watch from beneath the linden trees, then wander the arcades that line this charming 16th-century square. Don’t miss the extraordinary modern art collection in the Centre Pompidou, or the equally exceptional ice cream at Berthillon on Île Saint-Louis, a tiny island in the middle of the Seine. 5th Arrondissement Within the winding lanes of the Latin Quarter on the Left Bank, you’ll find a dazzling array of late-night bars and restaurants, sultry jazz clubs and Art Deco cinemas. Pay your respects to Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Marie Curie and the dozens of other French luminaries who are interred or commemorated in the magnificent Panthéon, buy a book at the semi-legendary English-language bookstore Shakespeare and Company, and meet cute red pandas at the Ménagerie in the verdant Jardin des Plantes 6th Arrondissement Walk in the footsteps of the hundreds of artists and intellectuals who have called boho Saint-Germain-des-Prés home across the years, including Sartre, Picasso, Camus and Brecht. The 6th is also home to one of Paris’s finest parks: the Jardin du Luxembourg. Rent antique toy boats and sail them on the lake in front of the Palais de Luxembourg, smell the roses in the exquisite Italianate gardens or simply pull up a chair and watch the locals compete at the ancient game of pétanque. 7th Arrondissement Tick off some of the city’s biggest hitters in the 7th, where you can – deep breath – climb the Eiffel Tower (or picnic beneath it on the lawns of the Champ de Mars), view the biggest collection of Impressionist art on the planet at the Musée d’Orsay, stroll the Musée Rodin’s perfectly sculpted gardens and admire hundreds of years of indigineous art behind the foliage-covered facade of the Musée du Quai Branly. 8th Arrondissement Just across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower is a luxury shopper’s paradise. The Champs Élysees is home to the largest Louis Vuitton store in the world, plus branches of Cartier, Chanel, Dior and more. Treat yourself to a colorful box of macarons from pastry master Pierre Hermé or the opulent Ladurée store, then use the subsequent sugar rush to power you up the 284 steps to the Arc de Triomphe’s viewing platform. 9th Arrondissement Noted for its beautiful Haussmannian architecture, the lively 9th arrondissement continues the shopping theme with Galeries Lafayette – worth a visit for its incredible stained-glass cupola and terrace views alone. Check out Musée Grévin, a 150-year-old wax museum inside the historic Passage Jouffroy arcade and take in a show at the flamboyant Opéra Garnier, an absolute must-visit for Phantom of the Opera fans. 10th Arrondissement Stroll the scenic Canal Saint-Martin, with its picturesque Venetian bridges, tree-lined cobblestone walkways, shaded quays and colorful street art. The 10th is also home to the busy Gare du Nord and Gare de l'Ést train stations, gateways to the likes of Parc Astérix and the Palace of Versailles. 11th Arrondissement Place de la Bastille and its weekly markets make the largely residential 11th arrondissement worthy of your time. Head for the arts and crafts market on Saturdays, and visit the Marché Bastille on Thursdays and Sundays, where local producers showcase the finest foods the region has to offer. 12th Arrondissement Also mostly residential, the 12th is notable primarily for the magnificent Opéra Bastille, as well as its proximity to the expansive Bois de Vincennes. Paris’s biggest public park, it boasts a chateau, a boating lake, a forest, an arboretum and a zoo among other things. 13th Arrondissement Street art fans will find much to enjoy in the residential 13th arrondissement. Here, local artists use huge concrete high rises as their canvas, resulting in some spectacular and often huuuuge murals. 14th Arrondissement Twenty meters beneath the streets of the 14th, you can visit one of the city’s most macabre attractions. The Paris Catacombs contains a labyrinth of tunnels, with a bone-chilling ossuary that contains the mortal remains of some six million Parisians. A must-see, but most definitely not for the faint of heart. 15th Arrondissement At the westernmost point of the Left Bank, the 15th offers some of the Paris’s finest views. Board the Ballon de Paris Generali in Parc André Citroën to rise 150 meters above the city, or whiz up to the 56th floor of the Montparnasse Tower for uninterrupted views of its far more beautiful counterpart, the Eiffel Tower. 16th Arrondissement There are enough specialty museums here to while away a day or more, the Palais de Tokyo with its excellent avant-garde art collection and the anthropological Musée de l'Homme to name but two. The 16th also adjoins the massive Bois de Boulogne park, where you can go boating, stroll through the woods to the Parc de Bagatelle botanical garden, explore the grotto and much more. 17th Arrondissement Many consider this residential area to be the real Paris. Head to its charming Batignolles neighborhood for quirky bistros, boutiques and street markets, and pause to feed the ducks and play pétanque with the locals in leafy Batignolles Square. 18th Arrondissement Take the funicular up to the Sacré Cœur Basilica atop Montmartre and soak up the atmosphere in cobbled streets and squares that have inspired artists from Modigliani to Picasso. It’s here you’ll find the Moulin Rouge cabaret with its iconic neon-red windmill, and the Place du Tertre, where local portrait painters ply their trade. Get yours done, then grab an ice cream and take in one of the city’s best views from the basilica steps. 19th Arrondissement Green space abounds out in the 19th, where hilly Parc des Buttes-Chaumont offers some of Paris’s best views, as well as an Eiffel-designed suspension bridge, secret grotto and artificial waterfall. Nearby Parc de la Villette is a cultural mecca, home to the biggest science museum in Europe, an IMAX cinema, plus several music venues and theaters. Visit in summer for its open-air cinema and the temporary artificial beach at nearby Bassin de la Villette. 20th Arrondissement Last but by no means least, the 20th arrondissement boasts cool street art, independent boutiques and the second-biggest Chinatown in Paris. It’s also here that you’ll find the vast Père Lachaise Cemetery. You could spend many hours wandering the cemetery’s wide avenues and visiting the ornate tombs and monuments where great artistic figures including Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Sarah Bernhardt, Chopin and Édith Piaf are interred. Save on things to do in Paris Save on admission to Paris attractions with Go City. Check out @GoCity on Instagram and Facebook for the latest top tips and attraction info.
Stuart Bak
Stuart Bak
A couple walk in the snow towards the Eiffel Tower
Blog

Top things to do in Paris in December

Christmas and New Year celebrations make December a great time to visit Paris, check out our guide for all your need to know, and more!
Ian Packham
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Blog

Outdoor Activities Paris

Paris offers plenty to entertain the outdoor enthusiast year round. Alongside its scenic canals, hundreds of pavement cafés par excellence and impressive program of summer festivals and outdoor theater, the City of Light boasts more than 500 green spaces, running the full gamut from tiny public squares to painstakingly manicured formal gardens and acres of wild, sprawling woodland. Hire a bike, try your hand at pétanque, or join the locals in a spot of people-watching over espresso and pain au chocolat. Read on to discover our pick of the finest outdoor activities Paris has to offer. Soak up the Views Paris is a city that just begs to be admired, photographed, sketched and painted. From the cobbled lanes of Montmartre, to the grand bridges that span the Seine, soaring monuments in steel and stone, and its bruised sunset skies, Paris’s vistas are rarely anything less than utterly captivating. Get a bird’s eye view of the city aboard the Ballon de Paris Generali. This tethered helium balloon in the Parc André Citroën soars 150 meters into the sky, affording fantastic views of all of the city’s landmarks. Or, if you’re feeling particularly adventurous (and fit), why not take the stairs – all 674 of them – up to the second level of the Eiffel Tower? A glass elevator does the rest of the hard work for you, raising you to the open-air observation deck that’s – gulp – a knee-knocking 276 meters above terra firma. A glass of Champagne at the bar may take the edge off. You’ll also be relieved to hear that you’re not expected to take the stairs all the way back down again. Take the cute funicular railway from the cobbled streets of boho Montmartre up to the Sacré-Cœur. There are worse ways to while away an hour or two than sitting on the stone steps of this beautiful basilica at sundown with a hot, sugary crepe, soaking up some of the city’s most wonderful widescreen views. Bateaux and bicycles Getting around on two wheels is a relatively easy and relaxing way to explore Paris, thanks to an excellent network of dedicated cycle paths and a fairly reliable bike rental system in the shape of the Vélib' Métropole. You can get daily, weekly (or longer subscriptions) that allow you to pick up and drop-off bikes at hundreds of rental stations around the city, giving you the freedom to sightsee at your own pace. Dodge the Segway tours wobbling their perilous way around the major attractions, swerve the camera-toting tourists dawdling in the Marais and make for the pleasant routes that meander alongside picturesque Canal Saint-Martin, with its romantic footbridges, laidback café culture, shabby-chic brasseries and secluded, tree-lined quays. Heading north, the scenery takes a distinct turn for the industrial, with twin cinemas that face off across the Bassin de la Villette. Pedal just a little further and you’ll reach the Pont Levant de la rue de Crimée, the last remaining hydraulic lift bridge in Paris and a relic of the canal’s extension at the end of the 19th Century. You might even be lucky enough to see it in action, rising up gracefully to allow boats to pass underneath. If pedal power sounds too much like hard work, there are plenty of bateaux that will let you enjoy the sights of Paris from the water – ideally with your feet up and a glass of something sparkling in your hand. Take a sunset Seine cruise to see the city in all its glory, as monuments including the Eiffel Tower, Pont Alexandre III and the Notre-Dame Cathedral light up atmospherically against a dusky pink sky. Summer in the City “I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles.” So sang Ella Fitgerald in 1956. Granted, Ella also declared her admiration for Paris in fall, winter and spring in the song, but can you bask on golden sands by the Seine in January? Non! Paris Plages runs from July to August every year and sees the riverbanks of Trocadéro Gardens, Parc Rives de Seine and the Bassin de la Villette transformed into sandy beaches, complete with palm trees and parasols. Grab a delicious pistachio ice cream, pull up a deckchair and enjoy a flavor of the French Riviera in the heart of the city. A hot favorite with locals, Parc de la Villette is one of the largest green spaces in Paris. It’s also something of a cultural mecca, crammed with concert halls, theaters and museums, as well as a series of bright red metal follies designed by architect Bernard Tschumi – there are 26 to find across the 137 acres of this massive playground. In summer, the park bursts into life with a busy roster of open-air events, including the popular Villette Sonique music festival. Meanwhile, movie mavens make a beeline for the park’s Cinéma en Plein Air festival, where popcorn-toting viewers gather on blankets and deckchairs on the lawn for classic films under the Paris sky. Best of the Rest Make like Henri Lacroix and bring your A-game to the parks of Paris. Whaddya mean you’ve never heard of Henri Lacroix? He’s only one of the greatest pétanque players the world has ever seen – thirteen times a world champion no less! Take on the local hipsters and old folks at this ancient boule-throwing contest in locations including Place de la Nation and the stunning surroundings of the Luxembourg Gardens. If all that isn’t enough to whet your appetite, why not head to Montmartre’s Place du Tertre to have your least flattering facial features wildly exaggerated and recorded for posterity by a local caricaturist? Go scavenging for treasures at Marché aux Puces de Saint-Ouen, Paris’s labyrinthine open-air flea market, or pay your respects at lavish celebrity tombs in the vast Père Lachaise Cemetery, where permanent residents include Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison and Marcel Marceau. Finally, there is no outdoor activity more Parisian than perching elegantly at a tiny pavement café table, and peering inscrutably through dark glasses at passers-by over your café crème. Overflowing ashtray of lipstick-stained Gauloises butts optional. Save on indoor and outdoor activities in Paris Save on admission to Paris attractions with Go City. Check out @GoCity on Instagram and Facebook for the latest top tips and attraction info.
Stuart Bak
Stuart Bak

Have a 5% discount, on us!

Sign up to our newsletter and receive exclusive discounts, trip inspiration and attraction updates straight to your inbox.