4 Days in Paris: A Perfect Itinerary (for First Timers)

I think it all comes down to expectations. 

Paris is not a city in a fairytale, which I think is what many first-time visitors build it up to be.

They have this romantic ideal in their head, where they’re strolling by the Seine with a red beret on their head, hand in hand with their lover on their way to a cozy bistro for dinner. 

While that can certainly exist in Paris, it’s leaving out the part where there are cars honking, you just stepped in dog poop and are frantically trying to wipe it off on a leaf or the curb, and you’re running late because the metro was delayed. 

The romantic ideal of Paris is forgetting that Paris is a real city, a city full of tourists, and a big city, which means it has its fair share of problems.

It’s a little dirty (not as clean as Seville or Madrid, not as dirty as Rome), it’s a little crowded (especially on the metro at peak times), and it’s true that sometimes, Parisians can come off as unfriendly.

But on the other hand, it’s also an amazing city full of world-class art museums, a pretty great food scene, romantic neighborhoods full of narrow cobblestone streets like Montmartre, and tons of history and culture to dive into and learn more about. 

If there are two things I want you to know before you go to Paris, it’s these two. 

First, remember that Paris is a real city, and that the people living there are real people. There are great things about Paris, and there are annoying things about Paris.

We’ll do our best to help you see the great things and minimize the annoying things. Or at least be aware of them going in. 

Second, don’t try to fit it all in. Trust me, I’ve done that trip. I’ve run around from museum to museum, and seen it all, but absorbed almost none of it.

Instead, focus on a couple of main attractions (we think they’re the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Musée d’Orsay, and the Rodin Museum) and save some time to connect with locals on a walking tour, food tour, or cooking class to learn more about what makes Paris tick. 

Learn Some French – A Little Goes a Long Way!

Don’t be put off by the myth that Parisians are rude and unaccommodating to tourists. Generally speaking, it’s an outdated idea, and it usually comes from someone who hasn’t been to Paris in a decade or two.

The reality is that it basically comes down to a mismatch of expectations (again) around manners.

Specifically, greetings.

You need to make sure to greet everyone before you get into the interaction! For example, saying bonjour before ordering coffee from a barista.

As long as you greet everyone with a smile and a Bonjour – which is perhaps the most important part! – and make sure to be polite, most locals we’ve encountered have been absolutely lovely.

It will help if you learn a few important French phrases. 

In our experience, people are always happier when you make an effort to use their own language. Not just in France, but just about everywhere in the world. 

Here are some useful phrases to learn, and my attempt at phonetic spelling. 

• Bonjour (bone – jure) – hello / good day
• S’il vous plaît (seal voo play) – please (“if you please”, literally)
• Merci (mare – see) – thank you 
• Je voudrais (jeuh voo – dray) – I would like (this is the polite way of saying it, I think)
• Pardon – (par – do) – excuse me
• Excusez-moi (excuse – ay mwah ) – excuse me (different way to say it)
• Désolée (dez – oh – lay) – sorry

Here’s a more comprehensive guide to French phrases to learn, or you could pick up a small French phrasebook to help you learn French as you go. 

The Crowds Are Going to Be Intense (There’s No Real “Low” Season)

After a recent trip to Paris in November, I talked to multiple guides, restaurant owners, and baristas, and they all said some version of the same thing: “there is no low or shoulder season anymore.” 

This is true of most of the main cities in Europe, and certainly applies to Paris: the age of shoulder seasons that have meaningfully lower crowds is a thing of the past. 

However, the one thing I would say is that the makeup of the crowds changes by the season (for example, you see more kids and families in the spring and summer, and more young people and retirees in the fall). 

I wouldn’t expect to show up in Paris at any time and find it quiet (except, ironically, during the Olympics, which almost every Parisian I talked to said was relatively quiet, in a bad way for tourist-centric businesses). 

My point is that there is no time when you can visit the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, or the Arc de Triomphe and have them to yourself.

It’s just not going to happen. Even in November, the lines to access the Louvre were wild (though less wild than, say, July). 

Book Your Big Attractions in Advance

One thing that can be confusing, especially if it’s your first time in Paris or in a big European city, is that there are often two separate lines at most main tourist attractions: the line for the ticket office, and the line for security. 

A pro-tip here is that you can completely bypass the line for the ticket office at most major tourist attractions by booking a timed entry slot in advance. 

However, there are two considerations to keep in mind here. 

One, booking in advance obviously means you’re sacrificing flexibility, which may or may not be something you care about.

But think about it this way: by booking a Louvre timeslot in advance, you’re likely saving yourself a couple of hours of waiting in line at the ticket office. Which seems worth it if your time is limited!

This is really only important when it’s weather-related, I think. You might not want to go to Versailles on a gray, rainy day if you know it might be sunny on a different day. 

Two, some popular attractions – like the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay – have a limited number of slots available on a given day, and they will sell out online in advance. 

If that’s the case for your dates, then you have two options: book a tour that includes entry, or show up on the day of and wait in line at the ticket office (they usually have tickets set aside for walk up, but the lines can be long). 

4 Days in Paris: A Perfect Itinerary for First Timers

And now, let’s get into the meat of this itinerary. 

We have a secret for you. And it’s a lesson that it took us years of traveling to finally learn on our three month European extravaganza a few years ago.

Travel is better – and by better, we mean more rewarding, interesting, and fun – when you try your best to connect with locals to see the place through their eyes. 

I (Matt here!) took that to heart on my last visit to Paris in an effort to better understand what makes the city special, and came away with a much richer understanding of Paris’ unique culture and point of view on life. 

Particularly on that latest trip, I did a bunch of different tours and experiences (I’ve included the ones that I thought were particularly special in the guide below) that opened my eyes to a new side of the city, culture, and people. 

Our biggest tip for Paris (or any city, really) is to prioritize tours that connect you with locals and allow you to get a unique perspective on the city (which is what you’re going to see in this itinerary). 

In terms of structure, we always do our best to anchor the days in our itineraries around a main experience, with time on either side for things like coffee, cocktails, and good old fashioned wandering around a neighborhood. 

And we never, ever do multiple museums in a single day. Trust us and learn from our mistakes – you WILL be exhausted by the time you get to the second one, and will get a lot less out of it. 

With so much to experience in Paris, it’s definitely tempting to try to pack in all the sights, but then you’ll find you don’t have much time to “live like a Parisian”. And that would be a shame.

To make the most out of Paris, plan to do one or two major sights a day, and dedicate the rest to walking around the neighborhoods while leaving yourself energy to go out for a drink and some dancing or live entertainment in the evenings. 

What to Book in Advance: In general, to make sure you’re actually able to make it to some of the top sights in Paris, we’d recommend booking 2-3 months in advance for the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, the Eiffel Tower (if you want to go to the top), and Versailles. 

This is particularly important if you’re visiting over the summer, when we’ve seen crazy lines for some of Paris’ top sights, and it’s less important in the off-season (though we’d still book the Louvre in advance). 

Here’s an overview of the 4 day itinerary you’ll find below:

• Day 1: The Left Bank, Saint-Germain, and the Eiffel Tower
• Day 2: Gothic Churches, the Louvre, and the Arc de Triomphe
• Day 3: The Coolest Neighborhoods in Paris and a Foodie Experience
• Day 4: A Day Trip to Versailles

Below the detailed itinerary, you’ll find some suggestions on what to do with more or less time on your trip to Paris, including options for compressing this itinerary into one, two, or three days. 

A few things to note about the itinerary we’re about to get into. 

• We believe pretty strongly that you should skip going to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and have a few different places where you can get a better (we think) view of Paris for far less hassle. Instead, picnic at the base and walk across the river to Trocadero for nice views of the tower. 
  
  
• We also believe that the Champs-Élysées, while a beautiful wide boulevard that is emblematic of Paris, is just about the least “Parisian” place imaginable. It’s full of multinational chains that you could find in literally any big European city. Don’t spend more than 30 minutes on the Champs-Élysées. The Arc de Triomphe, however, is great!
  
  
• Many museums and attractions have a day that they are closed (for example, the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays), so plan accordingly.
  
  
• Many museums have a night where they are open late, which allows for locals to enjoy them after work. This is a great time to visit, but it depends on what else you have going on in your itinerary. 

Another note here at the top: This itinerary is jam-packed! There’s a ton to do and see (and eat, and drink) in Paris, and fitting it all into four days is impossible. 

To that end, we’ve made some hard choices (like the choice not to bother going up the Eiffel Tower) that are based on our own experiences in Paris in an effort to help you maximize your time and enjoyment. 

One of those choices is to include Versailles in the itinerary, rather than in the “more time” section. To be honest, we could go either way. 

We’d prefer adding Versailles only if you have five days or more, but we think you can fit it into four if you’re willing to skip some other things, like a walking tour about the French revolution or a visit to an additional museum. 

Last, but certainly not least, we’re not going to give specific recommendations on places to eat for two reasons. 

One, Matt has Celiac Disease and French food is absolutely TERRIBLE if you need to eat gluten free (there’s flour or bread in everything!), so we’re not really the right people to give that advice (except for the best gluten free restaurants in Paris, which we have plenty of opinions about). 

Two, it depends so much on your tastes and budget. So we’ll let you figure that out on your own, for the most part.

Day 1: Exploring the Left Bank

On your first full day in Paris, we’d skip the Louvre (save it for a day when you’re less jetlagged) and get oriented to the city by exploring the “Left Bank” of the Seine, which refers to the south side of the river (and is a very common way that you’ll hear people talk about Paris). 

A quick side note on the two banks. 

The names, which can be confusing if you don’t know this already, are derived from which side of the river they’re on if you’re looking downriver (or, put another way, in the direction that the river flows). 

The Seine flows through Paris from east to west, so if you’re looking west down the river, the 5th, 6th, and 7th Arrondissements are on the left side, while the 1st – 4th Arrondissements are on the right side.  

Historically speaking, the left bank has been known as the more creative, philosophical side of the river, where artists, writers, and revolutionaries hung out, while the right bank is the more aristocratic side, where the royal palace and the associated court was located. 

Today, that stereotype is less true than a couple hundred years ago, and we’d almost say that it’s flipped if you look at the 6th and 7th Arr., where housing is basically occupied by rich foreigners at this point. 

Anyway, the first day is focused on the Left Bank, where you’ll work your way from east to west, starting in the Latin Quarter (the 5th Arr.), hitting our favorite museum in Paris, and ending in the 7th Arr. at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. 

The Latin Quarter

The Latin Quarter is our favorite part of Paris’ Left Bank (at least of the arrondissements along the river).

While the 6th and 7th feel very stuffy and, for lack of a better word, aristocratic, the 5th (which is the Latin Quarter) is a little more lived in. 

I stayed here on my latest trip for almost a week, and was surprised at how often I encountered people that actually lived in the neighborhood while I was out and about (which is certainly less true in just about every other arrondissement in the single digits). 

Having a neighborhood that is “more local” is a little bit of a stereotype, and I did some thinking while I was wandering around Paris solo about what this really means. 

To me, it means that people actually live there and so you have a range of businesses catering to those locals rather than a string of souvenir shops geared towards tourists with the exact same Eiffel Tower snowglobes that they imported from elsewhere. 

That means you’re swapping those souvenir shops for a boulangerie, fromagerie, coffee shop, wine bar, bistro, and other places that I – and people like me – would actually want to hang out. Which is great!

The 5th has that in droves, along with two key spots that you definitely shouldn’t miss. 

The first, and your first stop on the trip, is the Jardin du Luxembourg, which is our personal favorite of the many green spaces in central Paris (and it was created in the 17th century!). 

We have been known to stop by a (gluten free) bakery nearby to pick up some pastries and head over to the gardens to bask in the warm sun, surrounded by greenery, fountains, sculptures, and people with a similar idea (including the old men playing Pétanque, which is kind of like bocce ball).

Technically, it’s in the 6th, but as you walk to the eastern side of the park you’ll be in the perfect position to wander up towards your next stop. 

That next stop? The Panthéon. 

Which, unlike the Panthéon that you’ll find in Rome, is not a pagan or Catholic religious site (it was at one point, but not today!), but is the burial site of “great men,” whatever that means. 

Originally, this was set to be a church, which is fairly obvious from the structure of the building from the outside. 

But as it was completed, the French Revolution had descended on Paris. One of the tenets of the French Revolution was breaking away from the Catholic Church as the ultimate power source (e.g. the divine right of kings), and so the church was rebranded into a mausoleum. 

Victor Hugo, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire are examples of said “great men™” buried here. 

While the interior is cool, the real reason that the Panthéon is on this itinerary – and why it is specifically in the morning – is that the dome offers a great view out over the rest of Paris.

And it’s best in the morning, when the sun is at your back and not directly overhead or behind the Eiffel Tower in the distance. 

The Panthéon opens at 10am, so our recommendation is to take a nice morning walk through the gardens (maybe with a pastry and some coffee from a bakery nearby), and then walk up to Panthéon to be there around opening, when the light will be best for photos. 

A Crash Course in Impressionism at the Musée d’Orsay

While the Louvre is the most impressive museum in Paris in terms of its size and scope, the award for our favorite museum in the city has to go to the Musée d’Orsay (although the Rodin Museum is a close second!). 

Now, we’re definitely not saying that the Louvre isn’t worth seeing (you’ll find it on day two of this itinerary).

But we ARE saying that it’s a somewhat overwhelming and intimidating collection.

And I just really love the impressionists, who were very much the bad boys (and a few ladies, too!) of the art world in their heyday.

Funny enough, the two museums are very much related – the collection that lives at the Musée d’Orsay today was originally housed at the Louvre before it was moved here when the train station was decommissioned (the building used to be a train station before Paris outgrew it). 

I’m a sucker for landscapes and bright colors, which puts me right in the bullseye for the target audience of the Impressionists. 

I had been to the Musée d’Orsay twice before my most recent trip to Paris, but it had been a decade since my last visit and I felt like it was time to revisit what I remembered as my favorite museum in Paris. 

One of the biggest learnings about myself over the past few years of traveling is that I’m really bad at doing art museums by myself. I really need the context and storytelling to capture my interest and help me understand what exactly I’m looking at.

As you make your way through the museum, you’ll get to enjoy some of the best impressionist art ever created. You’ll feast your eyes on Cézanne, Degas, Monet, Van Gogh, and many others.

If you visit on your own, make sure not to miss the Bal du Moulin de la Galette by Pierre-August Renoir with its energetic, lively atmosphere of a ball in Montmartre, Edouard Manet’s quizzical Olympia, Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night (if it’s on display), and Claude Monet’s Blue Water Lilies.

Though my favorite discovery was Pissarro, whose use of color captured my eye from across the room.

See the Eiffel Tower Up Close

Look, if we’re being completely honest, we don’t really think you should go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. 

It reminds us a lot of the Space Needle in Matt’s hometown of Seattle in the sense that it’s expensive – in this case, both in terms of money and time – and it’s missing a key element of the skyline…the Eiffel Tower! 

We have a couple of other suggestions for views of Paris that include the Eiffel Tower, and we would recommend skipping going to the top, instead focusing on the park at the base and the many views of the tower you can find from vantage points nearby. 

There are two things we think you should do at the Eiffel Tower that are completely free. 

The first is a picnic in the Champs de Mars, which is the park that’s at the base of the tower. 

After the museum, stop by the best grocery store on the Left Bank – La Grande Épicerie de Paris (here on Google Maps) – for some fresh bread, cheese and charcuterie, and perhaps a bottle of wine or some beer. 

Seriously, that grocery store is, yes, very fancy, but it’s a JOY to shop in and discover some new, interesting foods to try.

From there, it’s a short walk to the Eiffel Tower. 

At the park at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, you’ll find a huge group of people enjoying the view on warm sunny days in Paris. 

There’s some great people watching to be had here, including the people selling buckets of booze who have an intricate system designed to help them evade the police, who show up every once in a while. This is probably in the top 3 in terms of experiences in Paris. 

The second thing we think you should do is walk over to the other side of the Seine, where you’ll find two worthwhile spots with excellent views of the Eiffel Tower.  

First is the view from slightly above at the Jardins du Trocadéro (here on Google Maps). Second is the view of the Eiffel tower from the water level from here. 

As you’re walking around the Champs de Mars, be aware of your surroundings. Pickpockets are common in this part of the city, and you want to keep an eye on your belongings (no phones or wallets in back pockets, people!). 

The other thing to be aware of is the scams that are shell games and other informal gambling. 

As you’re walking around, you’re likely to see multiple iterations of this phenomenon, and you should know that the games are rigged against you, and that there are more people involved in the scam than you think (including many of the other players. 

In the grand scheme of things, we don’t think you need to spend that much time at the Eiffel Tower itself, and you’d be better off spending your time elsewhere. 

We will say that it is worth seeing the light show that the Eiffel Tower puts on for five minutes at the top of every hour after dark (until 11pm, usually).

The start times change with the season – obviously, there are more hours after dark in the winter than in the summer – and this is a good reference to read. You’ll need to know what time the sun sets. 

We’d watch it from the platform at the Jardins du Trocadéro just across the river, and you’ll want to be there a bit early to snag a spot. 

But what if you want to go to the top?

Well, you have a few options to get to the top – you can take elevators to the second floor viewing deck or all the way to the top, or tackle it on foot up to the second floor platform, which involves more than 1,500 steps in total (and saves about 30% on tickets).

You’ll need to get tickets either way and we recommend booking tickets online to avoid huge lines at the ticket office.

Be prepared for long security lines at basically all times – “skip the line” means you skip the ticket line, but everyone has to go through the security line.

If you want to go all the way to the top, we’d book several weeks in advance because they do sell out. 

Dive into the World of French Wine (with Erwan)

This is an important one for wine lovers. For a combination of many reasons, French wine just hits differently than wine from the new world. 

My somewhat educated opinion is that it’s roughly equal parts centuries of farming and winemaking expertise and the fact that you’re on vacation, so everything just tastes a little bit better. 

However, on my latest trip, I had a bit of a realization about wine in France.

It has to do with how wine lists are organized differently than we’re used to here in the U.S., and it means that many Americans on their first trip to Paris end up extremely confused when they sit down at their first dinner and try to order wine. 

The reason? There is not a single mention of wine varietals on a French wine list. 

In the U.S., when you go to order wine, you’re generally ordering it by varietal, like Cabernet Sauvignon or Sauvignon Blanc. 

In France, things are organized by region and even city, without a single mention of what grape you’re ordering. 

In fact, if you look at a typical French wine list, you will not see a single mention of a grape varietal.

The reason is actually fairly simple (though I still think it would be helpful to know the grape varietals too!): The French believe in the concept of terroir. 

The idea that the soil, elevation, and climate of the place imparts inherent characteristics on the wine, and that a grape varietal grown in, say, Australia is going to taste different from the same varietal grown in France. 

The idea of place is the most important thing that creates the wine in the bottle, so that’s what they lead with. 

However, if you’re coming from our American paradigm and approach, it’s extremely confusing, because how the heck am I supposed to know what the wine in Sancerre or Bourgogne is like?

Well, you have to taste them! 

If you care about finding what kinds of French wine you like (and what you don’t) and aren’t already familiar with French wine, I highly recommend investing in a wine tasting experience where an expert walks you through the main wine regions in France, and guides you through a tasting of them. 

If you want to make sure to drink great wine during your trip, I’d highly recommend scheduling one of those experiences for your first night to set you up for success for the rest of your trip. 

I know this, because I did two on my latest trip, and despite being generally familiar with a couple of regions, I learned that I like wines from Sancerre (sauvignon blanc), other whites from the Loire Valley (like the chenin blanc from Saumur), and that I can get on board with reds from Languedoc. 

I came here multiple times on my latest trip to Paris, and I was sitting at the seat next to the stairs, where cinnamon and other baking spices were wafting up from the kitchen below. 

Grab a coffee, a pastry, and a seat on their terrace out front to set yourself up for an action-packed day ahead. 

The most impressive part about the story of the Chapel, at least to me, is the fact that it went from an idea to finished in less than a decade (while Notre Dame, which is of course much bigger, took more than a century). 

It’s a relatively quick visit – there’s basically only one room to see here – but it’s well worth braving the crowds, I think. I’ve done it three times now, and I will probably do it again in a few years.  

Lunch and Coffee in the 1st

After exploring the two churches, head over to the 1st Arrondissement, near the Louvre, for lunch and a little caffeine boost before you tackle the hefty museum that the district gets its name from. 

The reason to head here, specifically, for lunch is the fact that the area just north of the Louvre is known for its Japanese food, which I only realized and looked into after walking along Rue Sainte Anne (here on Google Maps) on my way to the coffee shop below. 

I asked a guide about this, and he had a few recommendations in the area. First is Kintaro for ramen. Second is Udon Jube. Last is You. 

I need to eat gluten free, so Japanese food is very difficult, generally speaking. However, there’s a 100% gluten free Japanese lunch spot called Cococo that I absolutely adore. 

The Louvre

Before we get into the main part of this section, let’s take a step back and talk about the Louvre as a tourist attraction. 

It might be the most famous tourist attraction in Paris (maybe second after the Eiffel Tower), but our feelings on the Louvre are slightly mixed. 

On one hand, this is one of the most impressive art collections on the planet, with an incredible breadth and depth of art – and by extension, important moments in art history – within its walls. 

On the other hand, it’s a MASSIVE museum that would take days, if not weeks, to fully see. 

But as you likely already know, you don’t have days or weeks, you have a portion of one day. 

Our recommendation is to spend no more than three to four hours in the Louvre.

That gives you enough time to see the highlights (more on this in a second) and wander a bit, but doesn’t have you spending a whole day inside the vast museum. 

Of course, this is all going to depend on your appetite for museums and how much of your precious time in Paris you want to spend wandering around the Louvre.

If you want to spend a full day doing that, by all means go for it! You’ll probably have to make a few cuts and changes to the rest of your itinerary. 

Now, let’s talk about the museum itself. 

The building that the Louvre currently lives in was originally a military building (though it was called a palace) to protect Paris’ western flank, and later became a royal palace.

It was turned into a museum for the people during the French Revolution in the late 18th century, and has been open to the public ever since.

In the basement of the Louvre you can actually still see the restored sections of the walls of the original building, which looks very much like the walls of a castle. 

The Louvre’s collection is MASSIVE, with representation from basically every corner of the globe. 

The most famous is, of course, Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, but you should absolutely set your expectations when it comes to viewing her. 

The room where the (surprisingly small) painting lives is almost always unbearably crowded, with people essentially crowd surfing to get to the front to take their precious picture (what the heck are you even going to do with that picture? You’re never going to look at it again!). 

Definitely be sure to look at the other paintings in that room, because there are some good ones at the backs of all the people trying to get a closer look at the Mona Lisa.

Visiting the Louvre Independently

If a tour isn’t in the budget (or doesn’t fit with your timing), we have a few thoughts on how to maximize your time and pleasure at the Louvre. 

First, absolutely book your tickets well in advance for a timed entry slot, which will allow you to skip the ticket office line and head straight to the security line, which everyone has to wait in (but at least you don’t have to wait in two long lines!).

You’ll want to book your tickets a few months in advance. You can book tickets here. 

Second, if you have pre-booked tickets, you can enter through a “secret” entrance (but how secret can it be if it’s listed on the Louvre’s website?) that sees far less crowds called “Porte des Lions.”

You can find it here on Google Maps. This does mean that you don’t go through the iconic entrance in the glass pyramid, but could literally save you an hour of your precious time. 

2024/2025 Note: The entrance at Porte des Lions is temporarily closed in late 2024, with no timeline for reopening. We’d still skip the pyramid line and instead enter at Carrousel, here on Google Maps, which is a secondary entrance through a mall. 

Third, we’d recommend either an afternoon visit (2pm or so), or taking advantage of the late night openings (currently Wednesday and Friday at the time of writing), when the museum is open late (until 9pm) and the crowds are much, much thinner. It will require a bit of rearranging, but it will be well worth it. 

Last, we think the audio guide is worth it, and is a good alternative to a guided tour that will give you a little bit more context and history around the works of art you’re looking at. 

Make sure to review their bag policies (which you can find on their FAQ’s) because big bags are not allowed in the museum. 

A Post-Museum Walk Through the Gardens

After a few hours at the Louvre, clear your head a little bit with a nice walk through the Tuileries with a couple of quick detours en route to the famous Champs-Élysées, the ultimate example of the grand Parisian boulevards of Napoleon III’s dreams. 

The Champs-Élysées are pretty “meh” for us – it’s lined with the exact same kinds of shops and stores you’d see anywhere else in the world, and it really isn’t all that charming or interesting.

If you want to go to a Zara, Five Guys, or an H&M, we’d do it at home and save your precious time in Paris for something else. 

Anyway, from the Louvre, walk west and you’ll immediately be in the Tuileries, passing under one of two triumphal arches built by Napoleon that you’ll see this afternoon (you’ll go to the top of the second!). 

Climb the Arc de Triomphe

Close out your day in Paris with a trip to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, which was built by Napoleon in the early 19^th century to commemorate a victory at Austerlitz. Napoleon LOVED his triumphal arches. 

A quick side note: If you’re interested in Napoleonic history, I have a recommendation for you. At the beginning of our latest three month trip to Europe that took us to Spain, Portugal, and Italy, we heard Napoleon’s name over and over, and to be honest, the only things I really knew about him were that he was short (which isn’t true) and spoke French in a funny way (because he wasn’t a native speaker – he was Corsican). 

So, to learn about the man who shaped modern Europe in many ways, I started listening to this podcast about Napoleon, and I love it. It’s a deep dive into Napoleon’s life and impact on Europe during his brief stint at the top. 

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Continue all the way up to the Place de l’Étoile, where you’ll be looking up at the Arc from below. 

The Arc de Triomphe can be reached through an underpass from the northern side of the Champs-Élysées, bringing you to just underneath the arch.

Go around sunset for soft golden light washing over the sprawling city, and stay for a bit when the lights come on, and you’ll understand how Paris got the nickname “City of Lights.” 

This is hands down my favorite view in Paris, and I’d say it’s a must-visit on just about every version of an itinerary. 

In particular, we really enjoy the north end of the neighborhood – a little triangle bordered by Place de la République, Arts et Métiers, and Square du Temple – where you’ll find several of our highlights listed below. 

This part of the city is a great place to eat, drink, and shop, and is worth a couple of hours of your time to absorb the architecture and vibes as you walk around and explore. 

Choose Your Own Foodie Adventure

Diving into the food culture in places we’re visiting is one of our favorite aspects of traveling, and we try to include a food tour, cooking class, or market tour in most places we visit. 

Unfortunately, the reality is that because Matt has Celiac Disease and can’t have even a speck of gluten without being sick for days, a food tour or cooking class wasn’t in the cards for us in Paris. 

HOWEVER. That does NOT mean it shouldn’t be for you!

We’d highly recommend it because it gives you a local’s perspective on the city’s food scene – what and where to eat and drink – and you get to connect with fellow travelers and try some amazing food.

Here are some options for you, split between food tours and cooking classes. Our bias is to do a cooking class, because we LOVE to cook, but we also enjoy a good food tour.

An Afternoon / Evening in Montmartre

Montmartre, until the 19th century, was actually a completely separate town (though, it was adjacent to the borders of Paris).

It was a small village on the hill with some shadier parts, some green open spaces, and a bunch of windmills that were used to grind flour for the population of the city. 

In the mid-to-late 19th century, it was famous for the soirees that were thrown on weekends, when wealthy Parisians would escape the city and amble up the hill to drink and dance in the gardens that provided a much-needed escape from the urban environment a few blocks away. 

If you go to the Musée d’Orsay (and you should!) and learn about impressionism, you’ll see multiple depictions of this phenomenon, most famously Renoir’s Bal du moulin de la Galette.

It has also gained the reputation for being the home of the artists in Paris, with Vincent Van Gogh, Renoir, many other artists in the impressionist movement, and even Pablo Picasso having lived in Montmartre for some period of time in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

Similar to Le Marais, Montmartre escaped the redevelopment projects that came with Napoleon III (again, not THAT Napoleon, but his nephew) that leveled huge swaths of the city to modernize it and turn it into the city you see today, with grand boulevards and wide open spaces (rather than narrow cobblestone streets). 

Mostly, that’s because it was outside the boundaries of the city at that time.  

The result is an uber charming neighborhood full of cobblestones, narrow winding streets, and excellent views out over Paris (which only get better the further up the hill you venture). 

Day 4: A Day Trip to Versailles

As we mentioned at the beginning of this itinerary, the choice to include Versailles here might be a bit controversial.

We would absolutely not spend time in Versailles with anything less than four full days in town, and even that is pushing it we’d say. 

However, it does tell an important story about the French Monarchy, and Versailles is, by far, the most incredible royal palace I’ve ever seen (and I’ve been to quite a few at this point).

The amount of gold on display rivals St. Peter’s Basilica (and serves the same purpose; the projection of power), and it’s hard to believe that someone actually lived here. 

Which brings us to a key question: What was this place?

Basically, King Louis XIV was getting sick of living in Paris amongst the peasants and decided to commission his own royal palace (on the site of an existing hunting lodge) outside the city, removed from the squalor of his people. 

Which, OOPS, sort of continued the French monarchy on a path to ruin because it showed that the king wasn’t a man of the people AND the monarchy was broke and couldn’t really afford a new royal palace. 

The former royal palaces are the Louvre, which was turned into a museum, and the Palais-Royal, which was given to a previous king (and Louis XIV abandoned it, giving it to his somewhat debaucherous younger brother). 

Anyway, Versailles is worth the better part of a day of your time to wander its halls marveling at the architecture, art, and, well, gold. Definitely don’t miss the gardens either, which are equally as impressive (we think) when things are in bloom and the fountains are fountaining. 

I should say here that we’re generally not a fan of the palaces of rich people because they’re usually not particularly interesting, and we don’t need to see some old king’s fancy art collection. Which at least partially applies to Versailles. 

The other thing to know about Versailles is that it’s a short (90 ish minutes each way) train ride outside of Paris, which means that you’re going to spend a bit of time in transit to get here. 

Last, but certainly not least, is that Versailles is going to be crowded AF, and there’s basically no way to get around it. Especially mid-morning when all the tour buses rock up. 

The point here is that it’s very much not worth it if you either:

• a) don’t care about a decommissioned royal palaces that are just one big obscene display of wealth
  
  
• b) you have less than four or five days to spend on Paris (with less than that, we’d argue you’re better off staying in Paris)
  
  
• c) you’re not interested in being one of 200 people in a room with a capacity of 50 people looking at a painting of the aforementioned rich guy

We’re not saying we hate Versailles at all – it’s actually an interesting place from a historical and cultural perspective because it was one domino on the road to the French Revolution – but it is very much a busy tourist attraction, and you should set expectations accordingly. 

Whether or not to do a tour here is somewhat more complicated than museums in Paris. 

A tour means you’re going to be on a strict timeline and, unlike a museum tour that ends inside and affords you the ability to continue exploring, a tour here likely includes transportation from Paris. 

On the other hand, the security lines at Versailles are LONG, and guided tours with a licensed guide get to use a separate entrance with shorter security lines. 

I have a couple of recommendations for tours of Versailles that I had bookmarked for my recent trip to Paris (I ended up cutting Versailles because I had done it multiple times before and it was November, which means the gardens are gray, drizzly, and dead).

I think they offer a somewhat unique approach to visiting Versailles. 

The first is this full day bike tour, which spends a full day out at Versailles and includes some time exploring the less-visited nearby sights, including the town of Versailles itself.

Being on a bike makes it a little more feasible to cover this much ground (you’re only on a bike outside the palace and gardens, if you’re wondering). 

For what it’s worth, that would be my top choice if I were going to do a tour of Versailles tomorrow because I think it’s a unique approach to visiting one of the most popular tourist attractions in France. 

The second is this more traditional tour of Versailles with a Parisian tour company (which I appreciate).

It includes transportation to and from Paris, but it does end at the palace (which gives you more time to explore if you want) and spends a fair amount of time (three hours or so) on the palace and gardens.

Some tours try to do it all – palace and gardens – in an hour and a half, which I think is madness. 

The palace at Versailles is closed on Mondays, so plan accordingly. 

Like we mentioned above, Paris is slightly too big to really cover a bunch of ground on foot, but what you can do is explore a far more targeted slice of Paris with a local to get a deeper understanding of the culture and history of a time period or neighborhood. 

I have done several of this type of tour over my trips to Paris. 

2 Days in Paris / A Weekend in Paris

If you’ve only got a couple of days in Paris, the first thing we’d do is choose between the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay. 

There’s so much to see in Paris that, with only a couple of days, we don’t think it makes sense to spend 3-4 hours on each museum, which is the amount of time you’d need to do them both justice. 

The second thing we’d recommend is to pick two of the neighborhoods on day 3, and we’d recommend that you choose Montmartre and Le Marais (sorry, Canal St. Martin!). 

Here’s what two days in Paris could look like.

• Day 1: Montmartre, Le Marais, and the Eiffel Tower
• Day 2: The Gothic Cathedrals, a Foodie Adventure, the Louvre, and the Arc de Triomphe

You can still use the relevant sections of the detailed 4 day itinerary above to plan out the specifics of your weekend in Paris.

One Day in Paris

Our first tip for spending a day in Paris is to book a second (or third). 

Joking aside, trying to see it all in a day just isn’t going to happen, which means you’ll need to prioritize and make some hard choices on what to save for next time. 

One big assumption we’re going to make here is that you want to see the Louvre. If that’s true, that’s going to eat up a significant chunk of time that you’re going to have to plan around. You could easily swap the Louvre for the Musée d’Orsay, if you’ve already done the Louvre before, or want something a little different. 

We’d also highly recommend investing in a 24 hour Metro Pass to make getting around Paris more efficient. 

Here are the things we think you should focus on with one day in Paris: 

• The Louvre OR the Musée d’Orsay
• The Gothic Cathedrals and Le Marais
• The Eiffel Tower

We’d start with the Louvre when they open (go to Telescope Coffee, some of the best coffee in Paris, nearby for coffee and pastries beforehand!) and spend the morning exploring their extensive collection, preferably on this guided tour, which we recently did and loved.

Then, make your way east through Le Marais, stopping at the Marche des Enfants Rouge for lunch and exploring the 3^rd and 4^th Arrondissements en route to the two Gothic Cathedrals, Notre Dame (the interior and bell tower are closed indefinitely, but it’s worth admiring the twin towering bell towers from outside) and Sainte-Chappelle. 

To end your day, take the metro over to the 7^th Arrondissement to end your day in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

Relax there for a bit, then walk under the tower (go up to the top if you want – make sure to book tickets in advance) and take in the view from Trocadéro, which is across the river to the west and has our favorite views of the tower. 

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