Photo: Shaunwiltshire (CC BY-SA 3.0)
A self-guided audio walking tour of Villefranche-sur-Mer, entirely on foot, from where the ships' tenders land at the Port de la Santé through the old town and the citadel to the Darse, the old galley harbour. On 8 August 1295 Charles II of Anjou persuaded the people living in the hills to settle by the sea and made Villefranche a free town and port; from 1388 it was Savoy's only port in the county of Nice. The walk passes the fishermen's Chapelle Saint-Pierre and the Quai de l'Amiral Courbet, goes through the Rue Obscure, a covered 14th-century sentry walk about 130 metres long, and climbs to the church of Saint-Michel, completed in 1757, the chapel of Sainte-Élisabeth and the Place Amélie Pollonnais. The Citadelle Saint-Elme, built for the dukes of Savoy between 1550 and 1560, holds the garrison's chapel and the Volti and Goetz-Boumeester museums. It ends at the Darse, the galley port of the Savoy rulers, and its long rope works.
14 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 41 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 5 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Port de la Santé, Chapelle Saint-Pierre, Quai de l'Amiral Courbet, Rue Obscure.
Église Saint-Michel, Chapelle Sainte-Elisabeth, Place Amélie Pollonnais, Citadel Moat and Bastions, Citadelle Saint-Elme.
Chapelle Saint-Elme, Musée Volti, Musée Goetz-Boumeester, La Darse, Corderie de la Darse.
The fishermen's chapel on the quay, probably of the second half of the 16th century, dedicated to Saint Peter.
A covered passage about 130 metres long, a 14th-century sentry walk along the town's first rampart.
The church in the heart of the old town, completed in 1757 after the town council decided to rebuild the dilapidated medieval church.
The fortress the dukes of Savoy built to hold the harbour, entered across a bridge of three arches and through a gateway in dressed stone.
More than 180 works by the sculptor Antoniucci Volti in the bastion and casemates of the citadel.
The old military harbour of the Savoy rulers, a galley port where ships were built, fitted out, repaired and crewed.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 14 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 14 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Villefranche-sur-Mer — the Old Town, the Citadel and the Harbour, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
14 narration points, including Port de la Santé, Chapelle Saint-Pierre, Quai de l'Amiral Courbet, Rue Obscure and Église Saint-Michel. That is about 13 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 14 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.