Everything to Know About Walking Tours in European Cities
- ashleydunlap
- Apr 2
- 6 min read
Walking tours are a great way to see any major European city, and I went on quite a few while solo traveling in Europe! Not a solo travel adventure, but I did participate in a Budapest walking tour with my family as well. The best place to find the right walking tour is on a site called Guru Walks, as you can find many different types of tours in cities all over the world. While there is no cost to reserve and attend a walking tour, the guides will always expect a tip but it is up to you what you pay. All the walking tours I have been on expected a minimum of 10 Euros, but guides always appreciate more because that is how they make their money!
Furthermore, I have provided a list of all the walking tours I attended while in Europe and assessed them based on the guide, route, and information learned.
Budapest
I am going to start with this one because I didn’t choose it, my mom did! But she said she found it online just by googling it, and she found a good one. This tour started at the self-explanatory fat policeman statue and our route included St. Stephen’s Basilica, a walk across the bridge dividing Buda and Pest, Andras Hadik statue, St. Matthias Church, and Fisherman’s Bastion. However, my family and I didn’t realize the tour ended on the other side of the bridge so we had to find our way back! But, we did have a lot of fun on the tour and learned a lot about Hungarian history, I just wish I remembered more.
Lisbon
The walking tour I went on in Lisbon was not the original one I planned, oddly enough. Two of my hostel mates and I were waiting at Rossio Square for someone with a red umbrella, as our hostel said to do. The walking tour we planned on going with was run by our hostel, but the person in charge never showed up. However, there was a guide with a yellow umbrella at Rossio Square who ran tours through a company called DISCOVER LISBON. We asked him if we could join his tour and he let us. This tour started at Rossio Square and the route included Church of Saint Dominic, a bakery where we tried a pastel de nada, the Moorish Quarter, and ended at the Church of Saint Anthony. This tour was very fun not just because of the route, but the guide was also very enthusiastic and knowledgeable about Lisbon. It was on this tour that I learned the popular Lisbon tiles aren’t actually Portuguese, they are Moorish! For more information, refer to my Lisbon article. Each one of us on the tour also had the opportunity to witness a minute of a mass service, and listen to a Portuguese hymn. We also learned about the Golden Gate bridge in Lisbon! In addition, at the final stop, each one of the adults got to play a game where we could throw a coin at the statue in front of the cathedral. If the coin landed in the book on the statue, it meant we would get married that year, but if it didn’t, we would have to wait another year. The more we would miss, the longer we’d wait, so most of us only tried once! Sadly, no one landed a coin in the book, but some of us were close!
Barcelona
This was the first walking tour I booked with Guru Walks, and while the previous walking tours were in the morning, this one was in the evening. The tour company was called Nostos Tours and our starting point was at Hard Rock Cafe. The interesting thing on this tour was that it included a ride on the metro that took us to the Gothic Quarter. Here is where we learned a lot about the dispute between Catalonia and the rest of Spain, and that Catalonia has always been trying to become its own country. We walked past the Barcelona Cathedral and ended up at La Rambla, the busiest street in Barcelona. Our guide gave us some great advice by saying that if you want to eat and/or buy souvenirs, DON’T do it at La Rambla, because everything is too expensive. We then learned about architect Gaudi, who designed a lot of buildings in Barcelona, including the unfinished Sagrada Familia, the work at Park Guell, Palau Guell, Casa Mila, and the one we saw on our tour-Casa Batllo. A fun fact we learned about Casa Mila is that the features on the rooftop inspired the masks George Lucas used for his Star Wars characters! Who would’ve thought? It was also revealed that Casa Batllo is overpriced because it’s so magnificent from the inside. A little less entertaining than the Lisbon tour, but very informative!
Paris
This tour was not through a company, but a professional solo guru instead. The guide was an Australian man living in Paris, so it was interesting having a guide who wasn’t from France. What was funny was that when I met up with him at the Arc de Triomphe, I was holding a starbucks toastie and coffee. Upon having to tell him I’m from the United States, he said, “ahhh! You’re being the stereotypical American with your Starbucks!” It’s an American stereotype foreigners have that I actually don’t mind. After the Arc de Triomphe, we walked down to the Champs-Elysees where we got an education about the fashion industry in Europe. There was a huge Louis Vuitton box sculpture that was a placeholder for a new store under construction. Our guide also talked about the history of Coco Chanel and even gave us a sample of her perfume to try. I opted out because I can’t stand perfume, but I’m sure it was a fun experience for everyone else on the tour!
We also learned about how the French air kiss as a greeting and find hugging odd, and everyone in the group got to demonstrate how they greet in their home country. I said Americans will shake hands or if they are feeling friendly, hug. Most of the group was from Europe, so it was much the same as either France or America. However, we did have a Turkish couple in our group that said the Turkish often greet each other by gently tapping each other’s heads. How unique! Moving away from the fashion tour, we ended up at Place de la Concorde and got into French Revolution history. We learned how Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette put their country in debt by only taxing the poor. This led them to make an attempt to escape to Austria, Marie Antoinette’s home country, but they were caught and executed soon enough. Our tour continued through Tuileries palace and Gardens and ended at the Louvre Museum. My tour guide also had a double pass and offered me one part of it because I was the only solo traveler in the group. I had to say no, just because I visited the Louvre prior, but what a good deal! He always has a double pass on him and gives one part of it to a solo traveler in his tours. Incase you are solo traveling in Paris and want to take advantage, sign up for any walking tour by Ben!
London
My most recent one, this was a history tour with the company London with a Local Tours. Our guide was actually Irish, but had been living in London for ten years. The guide was also very funny and enthusiastic and had a very fun way of telling history stories. The tour started at London Tower, which was used as a prison for 800 years up until the 1960s! People that were imprisoned here included Anne Boleyn and a couple of Henry VIII’s other wives. We moved onto the nearby London and Tower Bridge, where we learned the London Bridge was not what we thought it was! The London Bridge is actually the less fancy one, and everyone thinks the Tower Bridge is the London Bridge because it’s the bridge people associate with London. He even talked about Fergie’s “London Bridge” music video that she filmed in front of the Tower Bridge instead. As said by the guide, “Robert McCulloch made the same mistake Fergie did, by believing the London Bridge was the Tower Bridge. So when the package was delivered to his doorstep, he realized he had ordered the wrong bridge.” Alas, his purchase was a big waste of money. After that, we visited the Monument dedicated to those lost in the 1666 Great Fire of London. Not only was the fire caused by a baker, but it got worse when witnesses literally fought fire with fire, not a good idea literally or figuratively! Leadenhall Market was nearby as well, and we got to walk through an area with various types of restaurants and a nice design. This tour ended at St. Paul’s Cathedral, where King Charles and Princess Diana had their wedding. However, I did not see much of the cathedral because part of it was blocked off for filming. I would say that this tour is more geared towards history lovers, as there was more of that than actual sightseeing. But it was still fun!
Got questions about how to find the right walking tour? Feel free to contact me!
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