Paris : visites, billets et choses à faire

Ranked by traveller reviews: 1) the Louvre with a guided masterpieces tour, 2) the Eiffel Tower — climb the stairs or take the lift to the summit, 3) a Seine sightseeing or dinner cruise, 4) Versailles Palace and Gardens, 5) Notre-Dame and the Île de la Cité, 6) Montmartre and Sacré-Cœur, 7) a Marais bakery, pastry or wine and champagne tasting, 8) the Musée d’Orsay, 9) a day trip to the Loire châteaux, Mont-Saint-Michel or Giverny and 10) the Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe rooftop.

Plan four to five days. Day one: the Louvre first thing with a reserved-entry tour, the Tuileries, the Orangerie’s Water Lilies, a sunset Seine cruise. Day two: the Eiffel Tower at opening, the Trocadéro, the Musée d’Orsay, Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Day three: Notre-Dame, Sainte-Chapelle, the Latin Quarter, the Marais and the Place des Vosges, dinner in the Marais. Day four: Montmartre and Sacré-Cœur in the morning, the Opéra Garnier and the covered passages, a cabaret or the Eiffel Tower lit up at night. Day five: Versailles (go early) or Giverny. Longer stays add Mont-Saint-Michel, the Loire or Champagne.

Notre-Dame, Sacré-Cœur and the Montmartre lanes, the Tuileries, Luxembourg, Palais-Royal and Buttes-Chaumont gardens, the Seine quays from the Pont Neuf to the Eiffel Tower, Père Lachaise, the Marais and Place des Vosges, the Canal Saint-Martin, the Coulée Verte elevated walkway, the Petit Palais and Musée Carnavalet, the Galeries Lafayette rooftop, the Saint-Ouen flea market, the Pantheon square and Rue Mouffetard, the Bibliothèque nationale’s Richelieu reading room and, on the first Sunday of the month, the Louvre (October to March), the Orsay, the Pompidou and the Arc de Triomphe. Under-26 EU residents enter most national museums free year-round.

Versailles (40 minutes; tours from about €64, or the train and a timed ticket), Giverny and Monet’s gardens (April to October; €107 half-day, €134 with Versailles), the Loire Valley châteaux — Chambord, Chenonceau, Amboise (€109), Mont-Saint-Michel (a long 14-hour day; €89–116), Champagne’s Reims and Épernay cellars (€230–290), Fontainebleau and Vaux-le-Vicomte (€79), the Normandy D-Day beaches (€159 with Mont-Saint-Michel), Bruges (€135), Chartres by train (one hour) and Disneyland Paris (€179 with train tickets).

The Eiffel Tower sparkles for five minutes on the hour after dark — watch from the Trocadéro or a Seine cruise; the dinner cruises and the ‘Paris by Night’ tour, a cabaret at the Moulin Rouge, the Lido or the Crazy Horse, the Louvre’s late openings on Wednesdays and Fridays, the Orsay on Thursdays, the rooftop bars of the Marais and the Pigalle cocktail scene, the wine bars of Saint-Germain and Oberkampf, jazz in the Latin Quarter cellars, the ghost and vampire walks of Montmartre, the Opéra Garnier or Bastille, and Sacré-Cœur’s steps with the city lit below.

Museums without the queues — the Louvre, Orsay, Orangerie, Rodin and the Pompidou (reopened after renovation); the Christmas markets and the Champs-Élysées lights from late November, the department-store windows on the Boulevard Haussmann, ice skating at the Hôtel de Ville and the Grand Palais, the sales in January, hot chocolate at Angelina, the covered passages, the Versailles interiors in near-empty rooms, the Eiffel Tower’s first-floor rink and the Chinese New Year parade in the 13th. Days are short and grey but hotel prices are their lowest.

The Eiffel Tower stairs and the summit, a Seine cruise, the Jardin du Luxembourg’s sailing boats and puppet theatre, the Louvre on a family-focused tour (Egyptian mummies first), the Cité des Sciences and its Cité des Enfants, the Natural History Museum’s Grande Galerie de l’Évolution and the Ménagerie zoo, the Jardin d’Acclimatation, the Catacombs for older children, the carousel at Sacré-Cœur, the Musée des Arts Forains, an Eiffel Tower photo shoot, the Paris Aquarium, the pastry and chocolate tours and a day at Disneyland Paris.

April to June and September to October — mild weather, long evenings, the gardens at their best and every attraction open. July and August are hot and crowded but many Parisians leave, so the city feels calmer at the end of August. November to March is cheapest and quietest, with Christmas lights in December. Book the Louvre, Eiffel Tower and Versailles weeks ahead in any season.

Yes, once — the summit at 276 metres shows the whole city and the champagne bar is a fun indulgence, but the second floor has the better view of the monuments and the stairs to it (674 steps, about €45 with a guide) skip most of the queue. Book a timed ticket or a guided climb weeks ahead; if the summit is sold out, the second floor at sunset followed by the light show from the Trocadéro is the classic evening.