A cultural travel guide to the world

Etiquette & taboos

Etiquette & taboos

Understanding local customs is where a journey begins. Find the topics that matter to you and feel at ease wherever you go.

France

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Site-specific notes 18

Taken from the "don'ts" on each site page here. Open a site for its full etiquette and background.

Eiffel Tower

  • Never carve or scribble on the tower's ironwork
  • don't crowd around for photos at Métro entrances or sight entrances
  • beware the 'friendship bracelet' scam — if someone accosts you insistently, just walk away.

Louvre

  • Don't touch the works or lean on display cases
  • don't hog the best spot in the 'Mona Lisa' room for long
  • don't eat or drink inside.

Nice Carnival

  • Climbing over the parade barriers
  • throwing objects at the floats
  • walking through the float procession

Bordeaux

  • Pressing companions to drink more
  • entering winemaking areas without permission

Strasbourg

  • Making loud noise in the old town's residential streets at night

Cité de Carcassonne

  • Climbing over railings or parapets
  • photographing private courtyards and residents' windows

Loire Valley Castles

  • Touching the furniture and furnishings indoors
  • trampling flowerbeds or lawns
  • talking loudly inside the historic buildings
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Musée d'Orsay

  • No flash photography — strong light damages 19th-century paint layers
  • do not lean close to or touch the paintings — the galleries maintain a viewing distance and staff will remind you
  • do not eat, drink or occupy the benches for long sleeps in the galleries

Mont Saint-Michel

  • Never go down onto the flats alone: the incoming tide can move several times faster than walking pace, and the quicksand and fog have killed — a safety taboo locals stress again and again
  • do not feed the island's many gulls, which will dive to snatch food
  • do not use flash, talk loudly on the phone or eat and drink in the abbey cloisters and church

Arc de Triomphe & Avenue des Champs-Élysées

  • Never walk across the circular traffic of the square — the many radiating streams of traffic have no pedestrian crossings and it is extremely dangerous
  • do not climb the stone railings at the base of the arch or carve or scribble on the reliefs
  • do not sit or lie on the tomb steps, eat there or take loud selfies

Palace of Versailles

  • Do not touch the furniture, tapestries or gilded decoration in the galleries — silent infrared alarms run beyond the barriers
  • no flash photography inside the palace, and no eating, drinking or loud phone calls
  • do not climb the garden sculptures, picnic on closed lawns or pick flowers from the beds

Baguette

  • Don't walk in and order without a greeting
  • don't squeeze the loaves one by one to choose

Notre-Dame de Paris

  • Don't talk loudly or use flash during services
  • don't enter in revealing clothes
  • don't block the queue lanes in the square for long