Coverage · France
Orleans
Orléans sits on the Loire at a bend that shaped French history: it is the city Joan of Arc rescued in 1429, turning the tide of the Hundred Years' War. The Gothic cathedral she fought to reclaim still dominates the skyline, and the streets around it layer Roman foundations, Renaissance mansions, and a UNESCO-listed riverfront into one compact centre.
34+ researched places in the app
Places researched in this city
A selection of the 34 places we've researched in this city. The full set is in the Parroo app.
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Sainte-Croix Cathedral
Started in 1278 and not finished until 1829, the cathedral was partly blown up during the Wars of Religion in 1568 and then rebuilt on royal orders by Henri IV, a Protestant king reconstructing a Catholic landmark. Its stained-glass windows trace the full story of Joan of Arc, whose liberation of Orléans is inextricably tied to this building.
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Place du Martroi
Long before the famous equestrian statue arrived, this square served as a Gallo-Roman cemetery, then a wheat market, and during the French Revolution it was the site of the guillotine. The bronze statue of Joan of Arc placed here in 1855 was cast from melted English cannons captured during the Hundred Years' War.
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Hôtel Groslot
The 150,000 red bricks laid in diamond patterns across this Renaissance façade were a deliberate display of wealth by the bailli Jacques Groslot in the 1550s, but the building is perhaps better remembered as the place where the teenage King François II died in 1560, just months after becoming king.
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House of Joan of Arc
The original house where Joan of Arc lodged for ten days during the 1429 siege was destroyed in WWII bombing; the timber-framed building standing today was reconstructed in 1965 at the initiative of André Malraux, and now holds 37,000 documents about her life and campaigns.
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Fleury Abbey
In 672, monks from this abbey reportedly smuggled the bones of Saint Benedict out of Monte Cassino in Italy, transforming a modest Loire-side monastery into one of the major pilgrimage centres of medieval Europe. The Romanesque basilica built to house those relics between the 11th and 12th centuries still stands largely intact.
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CERCIL Memorial Museum
Housed in a renovated 19th-century kindergarten, this museum was founded in 1991 to document the Loiret internment camps at Beaune-la-Rolande and Pithiviers, through which thousands of Jewish families passed before deportation. A fragment of an actual camp barrack, classified as a historic monument, sits inside.
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FRAC Centre-Val de Loire (Les Turbulences)
The rippling metal-and-aluminium extension grafted onto an 18th-century former military depot in 2013 has a façade that responds to live environmental data, changing its lighting in real time. The building itself is part of the collection, designed by Jakob + MacFarlane as a piece of experimental architecture to house one of Europe's most significant collections of architectural art.
Good to know
- How many places does Parroo cover in Orleans?
- 34 researched places, from the Sainte-Croix Cathedral and the House of Joan of Arc to lesser-known spots like the CERCIL Memorial Museum. Each one has a short summary, a full article, and a ~3-minute audio story.
- Is there an audio guide?
- Yes. Every place has a ~3-minute audio story, written from the perspective of a guide standing next to you and produced with premium narration, not the article read aloud.
- Which languages is Orleans available in?
- German, English, and French. Pick whichever you'd rather read or listen in.
- Do I need to book anything or be online?
- No booking, no signup. It's a self-guided walk you start whenever you like. You do need a connection for now to stream the audio and load articles; offline support is something we're still building.
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Updated: 2026-05-29