Three days for the Paris that the city's reputation is based on — the Eiffel Tower at dusk, the Louvre's Denon wing, the Musée d'Orsay's Impressionist collection, Notre-Dame de Paris (under reconstruction but the exterior and île de la Cité are accessible), and the Left Bank neighborhoods. This isn't a rush through the monuments — it's the itinerary that makes you understand what the fuss is about.
The Louvre is the largest art museum in the world and contains some of the most significant objects on earth. Don't try to see all of it — 35,000 works are on display and a proper walk through everything takes days. The Denon wing (Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Winged Victory) is the non-negotiable 2-hour circuit. Then the Tuileries Garden, the Palais-Royal, and eastward through the Marais to the Place des Vosges.
Buy a timed-entry ticket at louvre.fr; the walk-up queue can be over 2 hours in peak season. Arrive at the Pyramid entrance at opening (9am). Priority: Winged Victory of Samothrace (the staircase approach is one of the great museum experiences), Venus de Milo (Room 16, Greek antiquities), and the Mona Lisa (Room 711, Salle des États, Denon Wing — smaller than you expect, behind glass, crowded). The Vermeer and Dutch Flemish paintings on the second floor are excellent and usually uncrowded. Budget 2–3 hours for a focused visit; more if time allows.
The wine bar version of Gregory Marchand's Frenchie — no reservations, first come first served at a zinc bar, rotating small plates, natural wine list. On Rue du Nil in the 2nd, a 10-minute walk from the Louvre. Budget €25–35. If the queue is too long, the covered passage Galerie Vivienne (1826, beautifully preserved) 3 minutes away has two or three solid bistro options and makes a good rain shelter.
The Marais is Paris's best-preserved medieval neighborhood — the aristocratic quarter before the Revolution, now home to the MHIT (Holocaust memorial, free), the Picasso Museum (€14), and the Place des Vosges (the oldest planned square in Paris, free). Walk the streets around Rue de Bretagne and Rue des Archives for the best concentration of independent bookshops, galleries, and the city's best falafel (L'As du Fallafel on Rue des Rosiers, €8, queue outside). The Carnavalet Museum (history of Paris, free) is on Rue de Sévigné.
The restaurants under the arcades of Place des Vosges are a mixed bag (mostly tourist-adjacent). Instead, walk one block to Rue de Bretagne or Rue Charlot — the Marais dining streets that still function for the neighborhood. Le Hangar on Impasse Berthaud is a classic: cash only, excellent steak frites, checked tablecloths, no English menu. Budget €35–45 per person with wine.
The Left Bank itinerary that justifies every Paris cliché: the Eiffel Tower before the crowds, Musée d'Orsay for the Impressionists, and Saint-Germain for the cafés and the bookshops. Start early; the Eiffel Tower queue at 9am is different from the Eiffel Tower queue at noon.
Go at 9am when the Champ de Mars is quiet and the light is right for photography. Buy tickets online at ticket.toureiffel.paris — the lift to the summit is €29.40, the stairs to Level 2 is €10.70 (significantly shorter queue, good value). The view from Level 2 is actually better for photographs than the summit, which is often hazy. The tower is 330 meters high and weighs 7,300 tonnes. It was supposed to be demolished in 1909 after the 1889 World's Fair; instead it became a radio transmission tower and the city kept it.
The famous Saint-Germain cafés — Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus, Hemingway — are expensive (€6 coffee, €22 croque-monsieur) and worth doing once. Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots face each other on Boulevard Saint-Germain 100m apart; both trade on the same literary history. The terrace in good weather, a café crème, and the people-watching are the product. Budget €15–20 per person for coffee and a light lunch. The actual food is fine; the room is the point.
The Jardin du Luxembourg is the Left Bank's great public park: the formal French garden around the Sénat palace, the chess players, the beehives (the Luxembourg has maintained bees since 1872), and the toy sailboats on the basin that children have been renting for 150 years. From there, walk north into the Latin Quarter — the university neighborhood on the slopes of the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève — for the Panthéon (€13, the mausoleum of Voltaire, Rousseau, Marie Curie, and Victor Hugo) and the Rue Mouffetard market street.
The Bistrot Paul Bert in the 11th arrondissement is the benchmark Paris bistro: the €44 menu includes an amuse-bouche, starter, main, and dessert. The rib steak for two is carved tableside. The wine list is serious. It is the kind of restaurant that other Paris restaurants point to when someone asks what a real bistro looks like. Book 2 weeks ahead.
The morning in the medieval city center and the afternoon on the hill above Paris. Notre-Dame de Paris is still under reconstruction after the 2019 fire — the exterior is scaffolded but visible, and the surrounding Île de la Cité is worth a half-day on its own. Montmartre in the afternoon for the basilica, the views, and the neighborhood life of the 18th arrondissement.
The best boulangerie in Paris, possibly in France. On Rue Yves Toudic in the 10th, near Canal Saint-Martin. The escargot (the swirl pastry with pistachios and praline) and the pain des amis (the house bread) are the benchmarks. The bakery opens at 7am and sells out of key items by 10am on weekends. Buy something to eat standing outside; there is no café service, just one of the best bakeries in the world.
Notre-Dame is expected to fully reopen in late 2024/2025 after the fire reconstruction — check current status before visiting. Even with scaffolding, the exterior and the setting (on the island in the Seine, the square in front) are worth seeing. The Crypte Archéologique (€9) beneath the square shows 2,000 years of Parisian foundations from Roman Lutetia to medieval Paris. The Conciergerie (€9) — Marie Antoinette's prison before the guillotine — is on the north side of the island. Sainte-Chapelle is 5 minutes west.
Montmartre is the hill that gave Paris its Bohemian identity in the Belle Époque — Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Modigliani, Renoir all lived here when rents were cheap and the neighborhood was technically outside the city. The Basilique du Sacré-Cœur (free to enter) at the summit has the best panoramic view of Paris available from the ground. The steps are free; the funicular is €1.90. Avoid the portrait artists on Place du Tertre — the one tourist trap on an otherwise excellent hill. Walk the streets behind the Sacré-Cœur (Rue Lepic, Rue des Abbesses) for the best of the pre-Haussmann street scale.
RER B from Châtelet–Les Halles or Gare du Nord directly to CDG (35 min, €11.80). Allow 2.5 hours from central Paris to gate for international departures: 40 min transit + 90 min check-in/security margin. Terminal 2 (most Air France and international) has the fastest security. CDG Terminal 1 is a satellite structure requiring a people-mover; allow extra time.
Every evening from dusk until 1am, the Eiffel Tower sparkles for 5 minutes on the hour. The best viewing positions: Trocadéro (directly facing, formal, touristy but for good reason), Champ de Mars (the lawn below the tower, best for lying on the grass), or from the Pont d'Iéna (standing on the bridge, centered). The sparkling lights began in 2000 and are copyrighted — technically you cannot photograph them for commercial use, though this is effectively unenforceable.
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