Louvre
The world's most visited museum. Skip-the-line entry is essential — queues frequently top two hours in peak season.
About Paris
Paris rewards slow travel — long lunches, late evenings on café terraces, mornings drifting through museums so rich you'll want to come back just for the rooms you missed. It is a city built on a human scale, where grand boulevards give way to quiet courtyards and almost every neighbourhood feels like a small city of its own. Food is part of the rhythm of the day: fresh bread from the corner bakery, a market stall piled with cheese and fruit, a leisurely dinner that is never rushed. The city is just as rewarding after dark, when the streets glow and conversation drifts out of every café. Walk without a plan, sit down when you feel like it, and let the day take its own shape — the best moments in Paris are rarely the ones you scheduled.
Map of Paris
Explore Paris by interest
Museums & Culture
Musée d'Orsay
Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in a restored Beaux-Arts train station. Easier to navigate than the Louvre.
Eiffel Tower Summit Access
Tickets to the very top sell out weeks ahead. Book the timed-entry option as soon as you have dates.
Versailles Half-Day Tour
Skip-the-line palace entry plus a guided walk through the gardens, with hotel pickup options.
Theatres & Concert Halls
Palais Garnier
A historic opera house of 1,979 seats at the Place de l'Opéra, built for the Paris Opera between 1861 and 1875 at Napoleon III's request.
Philharmonie de Paris
A complex of concert halls in the Parc de la Villette in the 19th arrondissement, which also contains exhibition spaces and rehearsal rooms.
Salle Pleyel
A concert hall in the 8th arrondissement designed by Gustave Lyon with architect Jacques Marcel Auburtin, offering a varied programme that includes contemporary and popular music.
Opéra Bastille
A modern opera house in the 12th arrondissement, inaugurated in 1989, that serves as the main venue of the Paris National Opera alongside the Palais Garnier.
Cuisine & Food
Paris is a perpetual feast, from timeless neighbourhood bistros to the patisseries and boulangeries that set the global standard.
Le Train Bleu
The 1901 station buffet above the platforms at the Gare de Lyon, a listed monument painted end to end with the Riviera towns its trains once served. Book dinner, or just take a coffee at the bar and look up.
Bouillon Chartier
An 1896 bouillon off the Grands Boulevards, listed as a historic monument — a thousand seats, waiters still totting the bill up on the paper tablecloth, and three courses for what a sandwich costs elsewhere. No reservations; the queue moves faster than it looks.
Du Pain et des Idées
A gilded 1870s bakery on rue Yves Toudic with its painted ceiling intact. Come for the pain des amis and the escargot pistache-chocolat, and come midweek — it shuts at weekends.
Classic Parisian bistros
Cosy bistros serve enduring staples like steak frites, duck confit and creme brulee in an unmistakably Parisian atmosphere.
Patisseries and boulangeries
The city's bakeries and pastry shops turn out flawless croissants, baguettes and jewel-like pastries worth queueing for.
Le Comptoir du Relais
Yves Camdeborde's corner bistro on the Carrefour de l'Odéon, the room usually credited with starting bistronomie. Dinner is booked a month or two out; lunch is walk-in only and much the easier way in.
Septime
Bertrand Grébaut's Michelin-starred dining room on rue de Charonne, a short set menu built around whatever the suppliers sent that morning. Reservations open 60 days ahead and go in minutes — set an alarm.
Popular Tours & Experiences
Seine River Dinner Cruise
Three-course menu and glass walls as the city's monuments drift past.
Louvre Highlights Guided Tour
Two hours, skip-the-line entry and the masterpieces you came to see — Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Winged Victory.
Day Trip to Mont Saint-Michel
Long but unforgettable — direct coach from central Paris to the tidal island abbey.
Where to Stay
See full Paris hotel guide →Le Marais (3rd & 4th)
Boutique hotels, independent shops and easy walks to Notre-Dame, the Picasso Museum and the Seine.
Saint-Germain-des-Prés (6th)
Classic Left Bank — bookshops, cafés, the Luxembourg Gardens. Quietly upscale.
Montmartre (18th)
Hilltop village atmosphere, the Sacré-Cœur and excellent value compared to central Paris.
Practical Info
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Getting There
Charles de Gaulle (CDG) is the main international airport; Orly (ORY) handles most European routes. The RER B train links CDG to central Paris in about 35 minutes.
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Best Time to Visit
May to early July, September to October
