Paris

Paris is 105 km² — smaller than Sheffield — and holds around 2.1 million people inside a ring road you can drive round in forty minutes. That compactness is the thing to understand before you plan anything: the Louvre, Notre-Dame, the Marais, the Latin Quarter and the Eiffel Tower are all within an hour's walk of each other, and the twenty arrondissements spiral outward from the first like a snail shell, so an address ending in 75011 tells you roughly where you are without a map.

It has the largest art museum in the world, the most-visited paid monument on earth, and a café culture that is genuinely a way of organising the day rather than a marketing line. Notre-Dame reopened in December 2024 after five years of restoration. And unlike most capitals, the centre is still where people actually live — the Marais and the 11th are neighbourhoods first and attractions second.

Paris (75), Île-de-France

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Things to do

• The Louvre — Pick two wings and accept you will not see it all. Go at opening or after 6pm on a late-night Wednesday or Friday.
• Musée d'Orsay — The Impressionists, in a Beaux-Arts railway station. Smaller than the Louvre and, for many people, the better afternoon.
• Notre-Dame de Paris — Reopened December 2024. The restored interior is startlingly bright — the stone was cleaned as well as rebuilt.
• Sainte-Chapelle — Fifteen windows, 1,113 scenes, almost no wall. Twenty minutes, and the single most concentrated thing in Paris.
• The Marais on foot — Place des Vosges, the Musée Carnavalet (free, and the story of the city), the Picasso museum, then rue des Rosiers.
• A Seine walk at dusk — Pont Alexandre III to the Île Saint-Louis. The riverbanks are UNESCO-listed and the expressway is now a promenade.
• Père-Lachaise — 44 hectares of cemetery on a hill — Chopin, Wilde, Piaf, Morrison, and the Mur des Fédérés.

Tickets & tours

Bookable now through our ticketing partner.

• Arc de Triomphe: Entry ticket + Rooftop Access From £15.29 · 4.7/10
• Catacombs of Paris: Skip The Line From £34.11 · 4.6/10
• Paris: Chateau de Vincennes Ticket & Audio Tour From £12.96 · 4.5/10
• Fondation Louis Vuitton: Premium Access From £20.47 · 4.7/10
• La Conciergerie Ticket & In-App Audio Tour: From Royal Palace to Prison From £14.94 · 4.4/10
• Paris: Les Invalides Skip-the-Line Access Ticket & Army Museum Audio Tour From £17.91 · 4.5/10
• Musée d'Orsay: Dedicated Entrance From £11.04 · 4.7/10
• Paris: Pantheon Ticket & National Pride Audio Tour From £13.94 · 4.6/10

4 days in Paris

1. Day 1 The island and the Left Bank

   Sainte-Chapelle at opening, then Notre-Dame and a slow crossing to the Latin Quarter. Lunch on rue Mouffetard. Afternoon in the Musée d'Orsay, then the Luxembourg gardens until they close at dusk. Dinner in Saint-Germain.

2. Day 2 The Louvre and the Marais

   Louvre from opening — Denon and Sully, then out through the Tuileries. Lunch at the Marché des Enfants Rouges. Afternoon walking the Marais: Place des Vosges, Carnavalet, rue des Rosiers. Evening on Canal Saint-Martin.

3. Day 3 Montmartre and the tower

   Sacré-Cœur early, before the coaches, then the back streets and the vineyard. Afternoon at the Eiffel Tower with a booked slot, or Rodin's garden if you would rather look at it than climb it. Sunset from the Trocadéro.

4. Day 4 Versailles

   RER C from the centre, 45 minutes. The palace at opening, then most of the day in the gardens and the Trianons — the estate is 800 hectares and the crowds thin out fifteen minutes from the château. Back in Paris for dinner.

Practical

Best time to go

April–June and September–October: long days, terraces open, no August closures. Paris genuinely empties in the second half of August — quieter streets and cheaper hotels, but a lot of the best small restaurants shut for three weeks. Christmas markets and lights run late November to early January.

Getting there

Charles de Gaulle (RER B, 35 min to Gare du Nord) and Orly (Orlyval + RER, or the new M14 metro extension). Eurostar from London to Gare du Nord in 2h20 — arriving in the centre, which beats flying on total door-to-door time. Six mainline stations, each serving a different direction, so check which one your day trip leaves from.

Getting around

Walk, then metro. Fourteen lines, trains every two minutes, nothing more than 500 m from a station in the centre. Buy a Navigo Easy card and load carnets of ten. The Vélib' bike share is genuinely useful now the riverside expressways have been pedestrianised. Do not hire a car.

Eat & drink

The bistro is the point — a chalkboard, four starters, four mains, and a wine list of forty bottles. Book the small ones a week ahead. Beyond that: the covered markets (Marché des Enfants Rouges, the oldest, in the Marais), a boulangerie for the morning, and the fact that the best falafel in Europe is arguably on rue des Rosiers. Sunday lunch is a real meal; Sunday dinner is hard to find.

Know before you go

The pickpocket problem around the Trocadéro, the Louvre queue and metro line 1 is real and organised — a zipped bag in front of you solves it. Book the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay online with a timed slot or expect to lose ninety minutes. Many museums close on Monday or Tuesday, and it is not the same day everywhere.