50 Fun and Unusual Things to Do in Paris (Local Picks, With Prices)
I once spent forty minutes explaining to a school group why the Louvre's basement moat matters more than the Mona Lisa, and I still believe it. Paris rewards the visitor who wanders one street past the obvious. This list mixes the essentials worth their queue with fifty things — a fair few free, several downright strange — that make a week here feel lived-in rather than ticked off.
Only-here experiences
These are the things you cannot quite replicate anywhere else, for better or odder.
1. Climb the Eiffel Tower at the first morning slot
Everyone tells you to go at sunset; go at 9:30am instead. The light is cleaner, the queue is a third of the length, and you get the Champ de Mars nearly to yourself before tour buses arrive. Buy timed Eiffel Tower tickets weeks ahead in summer. Summit access runs roughly €70–110 depending on level and season.
2. Walk the Louvre's Cour Marly before opening
The glazed courtyard holding Coustou's rearing marble horses is free once you're inside and criminally under-visited compared to the Denon wing scrum. Go straight there first, then loop back for the Mona Lisa once the crowds thin around 11am. Standard Louvre admission is separate from any guided add-on.
3. Ride the Paris in a Day combo
For a first 48 hours this is the sensible cheat: Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame area and a Seine cruise stitched into one nine-hour day with a guide handling logistics. It suits travelers who want the highlights reel without three separate ticket queues.
Paris in A Day Louvre Eiffel Tower Notre Dame and Seine CruiseCheck availability on Viator →
4. Sit inside Sainte-Chapelle at midday
Fifteen soaring stained-glass windows turn the upper chapel into a kaleidoscope, and it's best between noon and 2pm when sun hits the south side directly. It sits inside the Palais de la Cité on Île de la Cité — pair it with Notre-Dame next door. Standard entry is modest; check current pricing on-site.
5. Descend into the Catacombs
Six million Parisians' bones stacked along 1.5 kilometers of tunnel under Montparnasse — genuinely unsettling, genuinely worth it. Daily entries are capped and standby lines can hit two hours, so a timed ticket is close to essential. Budget 45 minutes underground plus queueing time.
6. Take the tip-based City Center walk
A pay-what-you-feel format that keeps guides sharp: two and a half hours through the historic core with a storyteller who works for tips, not a flat fee. Good for a first afternoon to get your bearings before you commit to paid museums. Starts around €2 in practice, tip what it's worth.
Paris City Center Free Walking Tour (Tip-Based)Check availability on Viator →
7. Find the Paris Time Machine walk
A tips-based walking tour built around the idea of Paris as layered eras rather than a single era — Roman remnants, medieval alleys, Belle Époque facades on the same two-hour route. Good for repeat visitors who think they've "done" central Paris already.
Paris Time Machine: Hidden Gems Walking Tour (Tips-Based)Check availability on Viator →
8. Visit the Musée des Égouts de Paris
A walk-through sewer museum along the Left Bank that is exactly as strange as it sounds and surprisingly informative on how Haussmann rebuilt the city from underground up. Allow 45 minutes, wear shoes you don't mind getting slightly damp. Modest entry fee, check current hours as it closes periodically for flooding.
9. Watch the Passage des Panoramas at dusk
One of the covered nineteenth-century arcades near Grands Boulevards, full of stamp dealers, a century-old restaurant and glass roofs that glow amber as the lights come on. Free to wander, ten minutes from Opéra. Go around 6pm before shops shutter.
10. Tour the Paris City of Fashion walk
A private guided walk tracing how the city built its fashion identity, from Marie Antoinette's dressmaker to the couture houses of today — useful context if you're heading to the Marais boutiques afterward. Two hours, small groups, aimed at people who want history with their shopping.
Paris City of Fashion History Private Guided Walking TourCheck availability on Viator →
Food and drink
Paris eats on a schedule and a budget that rewards planning. See our broader Food & Wine guide for restaurant logic; here's where to spend a morning.
11. Join a Marais bakery workshop
Hands-on, small-group, and you leave with what you made plus the muscle memory for a proper croissant lamination. Two hours in the Marais, mornings work best before the ovens get crowded with retail orders. A genuinely useful skill souvenir rather than a trinket.
Paris French Bakery Experience Le MaraisCheck availability on Viator →
12. Take the Devour Paris food tour
Three hours, multiple stops, and a guide who actually explains why a cheese is aged the way it is rather than just handing you samples. This is the one to book if you only do one food tour — it's built for people who cook at home and want technique, not just tasting.
13. Eat at a bouillon
Bouillon Chartier and its newer siblings serve traditional French bistro plates — steak-frites, escargot, œuf mayonnaise — at prices from another decade, often under €15 a main. Expect a queue and shared tables; it moves fast. Grands Boulevards, no reservations at the original.
14. Do the Pastry Tour: croissants, macarons, iconic desserts
Two and a half hours built entirely around what Paris does better than anywhere: butter, sugar, and precision. Good for a slow morning rather than after a big lunch — pace yourself, this is not a light tasting. Best for first-time visitors who want the classics explained, not reinvented.
15. Drink natural wine in Belleville
Belleville's wine bars skew younger and cheaper than the Marais equivalents, with glasses from around €6–8 and a crowd that's more neighborhood than tourist. Go after 7pm on a weekday. The area also has some of the city's best-value North African food if you want dinner after.
16. Book the Wine and Champagne Tasting Masterclass
Two hours, a proper flight of French wine and Champagne with a sommelier who explains terroir without condescension. It suits couples wanting a quieter evening over a bar crawl, and it's a good rehearsal before a full-day Champagne region trip. Not for anyone in a hurry.
17. Buy cheese at Marché Bastille
A Sunday-morning market that's louder and more local than the Marais food shops, running along boulevard Richard-Lenoir. Bring cash, arrive by 10am before the best cheese stalls sell out, and budget €10–20 for a picnic haul. Free to browse.
18. Eat your way through Le Marais with 10+ tastings
A structured food tour that treats the Marais as a single long meal — cheese, wine, pastry, a "secret dish" the guide won't name in advance. Three and a half hours, good midday timing so you skip lunch entirely and just graze.
19. Get a croissant at 7am, standing up
Not a tour, just a habit: find any decent boulangerie near your hotel, buy one croissant, eat it on the pavement before the crowds start. It costs about €1.50–2 and tells you more about the neighborhood than any guidebook paragraph. Do this daily; it's the cheapest ritual in the city.
20. Take the Morning Food Tour: croissants, baguettes and chocolate
A gentler two-and-a-half-hour version aimed squarely at breakfast carbs and chocolate rather than a full meal — good if you have an afternoon museum booked and don't want to arrive stuffed. Small groups, Right Bank routing.
Outdoors and green Paris
21. Picnic in the Jardin du Luxembourg
Metal chairs you can drag anywhere, a model-boat pond, and enough shade in summer to make an afternoon disappear. Free entry, best on a weekday to avoid families claiming every chair by noon. Bring a baguette and cheese from a nearby market and call it lunch.
22. Cycle the Promenade Plantée
An elevated former railway line turned linear park above Avenue Daumesnil — Paris did the High Line concept first, quietly. Vélib' bikes make this an easy hour, or walk it in ninety minutes. Free if you walk, standard bike-share rates if you ride.
23. Row a boat on Bois de Vincennes lake
The city's largest green space, out on the eastern edge, has a lake with rowboat rental that costs a few euros for half an hour — an unusual way to see Paris skyline from a very different angle. Best on a warm weekend afternoon, allow half a day if you add the zoo or château.
24. Walk the Coulée Verte in autumn
Same elevated park as above but worth a separate mention for October, when the plane trees turn and the light goes gold — one of the better free things to do with a camera and no plan. Free, unhurried, best in the two hours before sunset.
25. Rent a Vélib' along the Seine banks
The riverside quays near the Louvre and Musée d'Orsay are pedestrianized stretches, ideal for an easy bike ride you can't really get wrong. Cheapest way to cover distance in an evening. Check current Vélib' day-pass pricing; it undercuts most guided cycling tours by a wide margin.
26. Explore Parc des Buttes-Chaumont
A nineteenth-century quarry turned park with cliffs, a suspension bridge and a temple on an island — the most dramatic topography of any Paris green space, and most visitors never make it out to the 19th arrondissement to see it. Free, best in late afternoon light.
After dark
27. Take the Paris by Night Walking Tour: Ghosts and Legends
Two hours through the older, darker corners of the Marais and Île de la Cité with stories that lean into plague pits and public executions rather than sanitized folklore. Good for couples or small groups who want atmosphere over art history. Runs in the evening, obviously.
28. Book a proper Paris by Night private experience
A three-hour after-dark outing aimed at people who want the illuminated monuments — Eiffel, Louvre pyramid, Notre-Dame — without the daytime crowds, at a higher price point that reflects the small-group format. Good for an anniversary or a last-night splurge rather than every visit.
29. See the Eiffel Tower's hourly sparkle
On the hour after dark the tower flickers with thousands of bulbs for five minutes — free, no ticket needed, best viewed from Trocadéro or a Seine bridge rather than directly underneath. Arrive ten minutes early to find a spot with a clear sightline.
30. Watch a show at Moulin Rouge
It is touristy and it knows it, and the choreography and costume budget are still genuinely impressive — this is the one "cliché" on the list I won't tell you to skip. Book the Moulin Rouge show weeks ahead; dinner packages sell out first around holidays.
31. Cross the Pont des Arts at midnight
The lock-covered railings are long gone, but the bridge remains the best free spot to see the Louvre, Institut de France and Notre-Dame's silhouette in one turn of the head. Quietest an hour after the last river cruises finish. Free, five minutes' walk from either bank.
32. Take an evening Seine dinner cruise
Live music, a multi-course menu, and the monuments lit up as you pass — book the top-rated options weeks ahead for weekend dates. Not cheap by this list's standards, but it's the one evening activity that requires zero walking after a long day. See Seine Cruises for the comparison.
Rainy day
Paris does rain more than its reputation suggests, especially in shoulder season — here's the backup plan, also usable as a standalone rainy day itinerary.
33. Spend a full morning at Musée d'Orsay
The former train station's glass roof and clock window make even a gray day feel dramatic, and the Impressionist collection needs less queuing patience than the Louvre. See our Musée d'Orsay page for timing. Go right at opening on a rainy weekday.
34. Browse the covered passages of the 2nd arrondissement
Galerie Vivienne, Passage Jouffroy and Passage Verdeau connect for nearly a kilometer of dry, glass-roofed wandering with bookshops, a toy museum entrance and a very good hot chocolate spot. Entirely free, best on a weekday afternoon when they're not crowded with fellow rain-dodgers.
35. Get lost in the Bibliothèque nationale's Richelieu site
The restored oval reading room reopened to the public a few years back and remains genuinely under-visited — vaulted glass ceiling, reading lamps, the works. Free to view the reading room from the gallery. Check current opening days before you go, as hours are limited.
36. Take shelter in the Musée de l'Orangerie
Monet's Water Lilies fill two oval rooms designed specifically for them, and on a wet day the natural light through the glass roof does something the paintings were built for. Smaller and calmer than the Orsay next door. Allow 90 minutes, standard admission applies.
37. Do the Louvre properly, guided
On a genuinely miserable day, the Louvre is not a compromise — it's the plan. A guide who knows the fast routes between wings saves real time in a museum this size. See our Louvre Museum guide for a room-by-room strategy before you book.
Free things to do
At least twenty items on this list already cost nothing or next to nothing; here are a few more dedicated free entries.
38. Watch the sunset from Sacré-Cœur's front steps
You don't need to pay for the dome climb to get one of the best free views in the city — the steps below the basilica look over the whole rooftop sweep of Paris. Arrive by 7pm in summer to get a decent step. Montmartre gets crowded but the view earns it.
39. Attend Mass at Notre-Dame's neighboring churches
With Notre-Dame's restoration and reopening status changing, nearby Saint-Sulpice and Saint-Eustache offer comparably grand organ music and free entry, often with fewer visitors. Check current Notre-Dame status before planning your day around it. Saint-Sulpice's organ recitals are a genuine free treat on Sundays.
40. Walk the Promenade des Berges de la Seine
A car-free riverside stretch on the Left Bank near the Eiffel Tower with floating gardens, ping-pong tables and the occasional pop-up bar — free, flat, and a good antidote to museum legs. Best in late afternoon when the light hits the water directly.
41. Visit Père Lachaise Cemetery
Jim Morrison, Chopin, Oscar Wilde and Edith Piaf, laid out across cobbled lanes that feel more like a sculpture park than a graveyard. Free entry, pick up a map at the gate since it's genuinely easy to get turned around. Two hours is enough for the highlights.
42. Try the Montmartre Free Walking Tour
A tips-based two-hour route through the steep lanes above Sacré-Cœur, covering the vineyard, the artists' square and the neighborhood's slide from bohemian poverty to expensive nostalgia. Good orientation before you come back to eat or shop here later without a guide.
43. Watch the street performers at Place Georges-Pompidou
The plaza in front of the Centre Pompidou (currently closed for renovation — check current status) still draws fire-eaters, portrait artists and the Stravinsky Fountain's kinetic sculptures next door. Free, unpredictable, good for twenty minutes between other plans.
With kids
Our dedicated Family Friendly and Paris with kids itinerary guides go deeper; these are the ones that actually hold a seven-year-old's attention.
44. Ride the Jardin d'Acclimatation rides
A gentler, older-fashioned amusement park inside the Bois de Boulogne, with a small entry fee plus per-ride tickets — less overwhelming than a full Disneyland day and easier to leave when patience runs out. Good half-day option for kids under eight.
45. Spend a day at Disneyland Paris
It fills a full day on its own and needs its own transit buffer — allow the RER journey time each way and don't stack anything else that day. See Disneyland Paris for ticket logic; one-day park tickets start around €60–90, more with packaged transport.
46. Feed the carousel obsession at Hôtel de Ville
A free, genuinely beautiful antique carousel sits in front of the town hall, lit up at night, and it's one of the few "attractions" in central Paris that costs almost nothing per ride. Good filler between Marais wandering and dinner.
47. Take the family to the Ménagerie in Jardin des Plantes
France's oldest zoo, small enough not to exhaust anyone, with a good reptile house for a rainy backup plan. Standard adult and child admission applies, check current family rates. Pair with the nearby natural history galleries if the weather holds.
Day trips
See the full Day Trips hub for a longer comparison; here's how the main options actually compare on time and cost.
| Day trip | Travel time | Typical tour price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Versailles | 35 min | from €64 | First-time visitors, half-day option |
| Giverny | 1 hr | from €139 (paired with Versailles) | Art lovers, spring/summer gardens |
| Mont-Saint-Michel | Full day | from €89 | One big scenic day, tiring but worth it |
| Champagne region | 1.5 hrs | from €230 | Wine-focused couples, splurge day |
| Loire Valley | 2 hrs | from €109 | Château obsessives, full day |
| Normandy D-Day | Full day | varies by operator | History-focused travelers |
48. Do Versailles properly, not as an afterthought
Thirty-five minutes from central Paris but easily an underrated full day if you include the gardens and Trianon estate, not just the château's state apartments. A guided version skips the worst of the security line, which peaks hard on weekends. Go midweek if your dates are flexible.
49. Combine Giverny and Versailles in one long day
An eleven-and-a-half-hour day that pairs Monet's garden with the palace grounds — ambitious, but it means you don't need a second full day trip later in your itinerary. Best in late spring when Giverny's lily pond is at its most photographed. Bring comfortable shoes; there's real walking involved.
50. Take the Champagne day trip with six tastings
Reims, a grand Champagne house, and six tastings across an eleven-hour day is a proper splurge, and the one day trip on this list I'd call genuinely underrated compared to how much attention Mont-Saint-Michel gets. Best for couples or small groups without young kids along.
How to plan it
- Days: three days covers the essentials plus one day trip; five to seven days lets you add Champagne or the Loire Valley without rushing back for a museum you missed.
- Where to stay: the Marais for food and nightlife, Saint-Germain for museums and quieter evenings, or near a Métro hub like République if budget matters more than atmosphere.
- Transit: a pack of 10 t+ Métro tickets on a Navigo Easy card covers most trips; RER tickets for Versailles, Disneyland and the airports are priced separately by zone.
- Book ahead: Eiffel Tower summit slots, Louvre timed entry, Versailles weekend tickets, Seine dinner cruises and Moulin Rouge all sell out days to weeks ahead in high season — reserve the moment your dates are fixed.
- Save money: shoulder season (April–May, September–October) brings better prices and shorter queues than summer; a Museum Pass pays off if you're hitting three or more paid sites.
- Skip: the queue for the Eiffel Tower's second-floor stairs in peak summer — the view gain over the free ground-level photo spots doesn't match the wait. Skip souvenir shops directly outside major monuments; prices run 30–40% higher than two streets over.
Questions people ask before going
Is three days enough for Paris?
Three days is genuinely the sweet spot: two days for the major museums and landmarks, one day trip to Versailles or Giverny. See our Paris in 3 days itinerary for the exact order that avoids doubling back across the city.
What's overrated and what's underrated?
Overrated: the Champs-Élysées itself, which is mostly chain stores and traffic noise dressed up as an icon. Underrated: the Champagne day trip, which gets a fraction of the bookings Mont-Saint-Michel does despite being just as memorable and considerably less of a bus ride.
Do I need to book the Louvre and Eiffel Tower ahead?
Yes, both, especially May through September. Louvre timed entry slots and Eiffel summit tickets sell out days ahead in high season, and standby queues for both can run well over an hour.
How much should I budget per day for activities?
A reasonable range is €30–60 for guided museum visits or walking tours, €15–25 for a Seine cruise, and €70–110 if you're doing the Eiffel Tower summit or a dinner cruise that day. Mixing in free options — parks, cemeteries, tips-based walks — keeps the daily average well under that.
Is Paris walkable, or should I plan around the Métro?
Both — the historic center is flat and compact enough that many sights sit 15–20 minutes apart on foot, but the Métro's 16 lines make longer hops across arrondissements fast and cheap. Most visitors end up doing a mix, walking riverside stretches and taking the Métro for anything over 30 minutes.
When should I visit to avoid the worst crowds?
September and October give you the best combination: mild 15–22°C days, thinner crowds than summer, and shoulder-season pricing on tours and hotels. Avoid late May's French Open dates and mid-July's Bastille Day period unless you specifically want to be there for them.