Coverage France
Audio Guide Blois
app, one-time €4.99
Blois sits above the Loire with one of France's most architecturally varied royal châteaux at its heart, where four distinct building styles from medieval to classical are stacked within a single courtyard. The city that sheltered French kings also produced Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, the magician who invented modern conjuring, and still honors him with a six-headed hydra automaton on the main square.
30+ researched places in the app
Yes. Parroo is a self-guided audio guide for Blois: 30 researched places, from Royal Castle of Blois to Saint-Louis Cathedral of Blois and Church of Saint Nicholas of Blois, each with a short summary, a full article, and a roughly three-minute audio story in German, English, and French. Buy once, no subscription, no booking. Start whenever you like.
Audio sample: Royal Castle of Blois
Blois
Places researched in this city
A selection of the 30 places we've researched in this city. The full set is in the Parroo app.
- Royal château
- Medieval streets
- Renaissance mansions
- Gothic churches
- Public staircases
- Contemporary art
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01
Royal Castle of Blois
Henri de Guise was assassinated here in 1588 on the orders of King Henri III, making this château one of the most blood-soaked rooms in French royal history. The building itself is an open textbook of French architecture, with four completely different styles built side by side from the 13th to the 17th century.
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02
Saint-Louis Cathedral of Blois
A hurricane on June 6, 1678 destroyed most of the previous church, and Louis XIV funded its reconstruction in Late Gothic style, an unusually old-fashioned choice for the Sun King's era. The cathedral only became a cathedral in 1697 when the Diocese of Blois was carved out of the oversized Diocese of Chartres.
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03
Church of Saint Nicholas of Blois
Monks fleeing Viking raids founded the original monastery here in 873, and the striking Romanesque-to-Gothic church that eventually replaced it was classified as a historic monument as early as 1840. A recent 3.8-million-euro restoration brought its ribbed vaults back to life.
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04
Jacques-Gabriel Bridge
The medieval bridge it replaced collapsed in a single night during an ice flood on February 6-7, 1716, and the regent for the young Louis XV authorized this replacement immediately. At the center of its 283-meter span stands a 14.60-meter obelisk, the work of sculptor Guillaume Coustou.
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05
House of Magic Robert-Houdin
Blois was the birthplace of Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, the 19th-century illusionist whose work so impressed Harry Houdini that Houdini took his name. The museum opposite the château features a façade animated by a six-headed mechanical hydra that emerges several times a day.
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06
The Foundation of Doubt
Ben Vautier's Fluxus foundation opened in 2013 inside the historic Couvent des Minimes and displays over 300 works including a wall of 313 enameled text plaques, the kind of art that asks whether what you are looking at is art at all. It is the only institution of its kind in France.
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07
House of the Acrobats
The carved wooden figures tumbling across this timber-framed façade gave the house its name, and dendrochronology pins its construction to around 1470, with the costumes of the figures confirming a date before 1480 fashion changed. It is one of the last medieval half-timbered houses standing in Blois.
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08
23 more places to discover
In the Parroo app
Good to know
30 researched places, from the Royal Castle of Blois and the Jacques-Gabriel Bridge to lesser-known spots like the House of the Acrobats. Each one has a short summary, a full article, and a ~3-minute audio story.
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.
German, English, and French. Pick whichever you'd rather read or listen in.
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.
A one-time €4.99 for the whole city, no subscription and no recurring cost. You buy Blois once and keep access to all 30 places with text and audio.
Open this city in Parroo
Get the full articles, audio stories, and map for this city in the Parroo app. One payment per geography. Yours to keep.
Updated: 2026-09-25