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Paris · 3–4 days

Paris in a long weekend: the icons, the bistros and the right base

A short, honest guide to a Paris long weekend — what to pre-book, where to stay, and how to leave enough room for the thing Paris does best: lingering over lunch.

Few cities reward a long weekend like Paris. Three or four days is enough to stand under the Eiffel Tower, lose an hour in the Louvre, wander Montmartre and the Marais — and still spend your evenings exactly as you should, at a candlelit bistro table. The trick is to pre-book the big-ticket sights, pick one good base, and resist the urge to cram: two or three set things a day, and the rest left loose for cafés, bookshops and the river.

When to go

• April to June — the best window. Mild, long days, chestnut blossom and terrace weather without the August heat. Late spring is Paris showing off.
• September to October — just as good, and quieter. The city comes back to life after the summer exodus, every restaurant is open again, and the light in October is the reason photographers love it.
• July and August — hot, busy, and partly closed. A good number of the best bistros shut for two or three weeks in August while their owners take their own holiday. Check your shortlist is open before you build a trip around it. In compensation, the city empties of Parisians and the summer river programme is in full swing.
• November to March — cheapest and quietest. Grey and short on daylight, but the museums are calm, the tables are free and the December lights on the grands boulevards are genuinely lovely. A good time for a first visit if you care more about interiors than terraces.

One small scheduling win regardless of season: come midweek. Tuesday to Thursday at the Louvre, the Orsay or Sainte-Chapelle is a different experience from a Saturday.

How long, and where to base yourself

Give it three to four nights, in a single base so you never waste an afternoon moving hotels:

• Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the 7th (Left Bank) — the classic romantic choice. Old cafés, the Luxembourg gardens, superb bistros, and an easy walk to the Orsay, the river and the Eiffel Tower.
• Le Marais (3rd and 4th) — livelier and younger, full of boutiques, wine bars and galleries, with the Picasso museum and Place des Vosges on the doorstep. The best area if you want to walk home from dinner at midnight.
• The 11th around Oberkampf, or the 9th below Pigalle — quieter, more residential and noticeably cheaper, with the city's most interesting new restaurants. Ten minutes further out, and worth it if it's not your first visit.

Avoid basing yourself right at the foot of the Eiffel Tower or on the Champs-Élysées. Both look central on a map and are, in practice, the least interesting places in Paris to walk out of your front door.

A sensible 3-day shape

• Day 1 · The Left Bank. Musée d'Orsay at opening (closed Mondays) for the Impressionists, a long lunch in Saint-Germain, then the Luxembourg gardens and a slow wander through the Latin Quarter. Dinner somewhere you booked weeks ago.
• Day 2 · The islands and the Marais. Sainte-Chapelle early, while the morning light is coming through the glass, then Notre-Dame and a walk across Île Saint-Louis for an ice cream. Afternoon in the Marais — Place des Vosges, the Picasso museum, the boutiques on rue des Francs-Bourgeois. Up the Eiffel Tower at dusk.
• Day 3 · The Louvre and Montmartre. The Louvre at opening (closed Tuesdays), one wing only, out by lunch. Afternoon up in Montmartre for the village lanes behind Sacré-Cœur, and the view over the city as the light goes.

With a fourth day, either add Versailles as a half-day trip by RER — go at opening and do the gardens as much as the palace — or, better on a first visit, do nothing scheduled at all: a market in the morning, a long lunch, a bookshop and the river.

What's genuinely worth your time

The big ones

The Louvre is unwinnable, so don't try: pick one wing, go at opening, and leave after two or three hours while you're still enjoying it. The Musée d'Orsay in the old railway station is the one most people end up loving more — the Impressionist floor at the top is the best hour in Paris. Sainte-Chapelle is small, takes twenty minutes and is worth every one of them; go in the morning when the sun is coming through the eastern glass. Notre-Dame is open again and free to enter, though reserving a slot in its official app saves a long queue. The Eiffel Tower is best either from the top at dusk or, honestly, from a café table at the Trocadéro with a coffee and no ticket at all.

The quieter ones

The Musée de l'Orangerie holds Monet's water-lily rooms and takes under an hour. The Musée Rodin has a garden you can sit in. Père Lachaise is a wooded hillside of a cemetery and one of the calmest walks in the city. Canal Saint-Martin on a Sunday, when the roads beside it close to traffic, is where Paris goes to sit on the ground with a bottle of wine. And every arrondissement has a market two or three mornings a week — find your local one and go.

The food, which is the actual point

Long bistro dinners are why people come back. Book the ones you care about weeks ahead — the small, well-reviewed rooms take reservations a month or more out and there is no walking in. Beyond that: a boulangerie breakfast rather than the hotel buffet, a cheese shop and a bottle for a picnic in the Luxembourg or on the Canal, and at least one bouillon — the old-style, cheap, enormous brasseries that are one of the few places in Paris that will happily seat eight people without notice.

Good to know

• Check closing days before you plan. The Louvre closes Tuesdays; the Musée d'Orsay closes Mondays. A weekend trip that loses a museum to this is entirely avoidable and very common.
• Pre-book sights and dinners, direct. Timed entry sells out, and booking on the museum's own site is cheaper and more flexible than a reseller. The same discipline applies to restaurants.
• Walk, then take the Métro. Central Paris is smaller than it looks — Saint-Germain to the Marais is a half-hour along the river. Load fares onto a rechargeable Navigo Easy card or the transport app rather than hunting for paper tickets.
• Airports: the train, or a flat-fare taxi. The RER B runs from Charles de Gaulle into the centre and Métro line 14 now runs direct from Orly — both are fine with light bags. Taxis to central Paris run on a fixed published fare, which makes them the easier call with luggage or a group — use the official rank, never someone who approaches you in the terminal.
• Keep bags zipped and in front of you on the Métro and at the crowded sights. Pickpocketing, not crime, is the realistic nuisance, and it concentrates on line 1, the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower.
• Tipping isn't expected. Service is included by law. Round up or leave a couple of euros if you had a good time; nobody is counting.
• Say bonjour first. Greeting someone before you ask for anything — in a shop, a bakery, a restaurant — is not optional politeness in France, it is the whole basis of the interaction. It changes the service you get more than anything else you can do.
• In summer, the river is in use. The city now runs supervised open-air swimming spots on the Seine and the Bassin de la Villette in the hottest weeks, alongside the long-standing Paris Plages beaches. Worth checking what's open if you're there in July or August.

Common questions

When is the best time to visit Paris?

Spring, from April to June, and early autumn, from September to October — mild days, long light and the city at its prettiest, with terrace weather but not terrace queues. Summer is hot and busy, and a good number of the best bistros close for two or three weeks in August while their owners go on holiday, so check your shortlist is actually open before you build a trip around it. Winter is the cheapest and quietest time and genuinely lovely in a cosy way — short grey days, but empty museums and no waiting for a table. Whatever the season, arrive midweek if you can: the big museums are noticeably calmer Tuesday to Thursday than at a weekend.

How many days do you need in Paris?

Three to four nights is the right length, and more is not obviously better on a first visit. That gives you the headline museums and monuments, two or three neighbourhoods to wander properly, and several unhurried meals. The useful rule is two fixed things a day and no more — one museum or monument in the morning, one in the late afternoon, and the middle of the day left completely open for lunch and walking. Paris punishes over-scheduling more than most cities, because the best hours in it are the unplanned ones.

Where is the best area to stay in Paris?

Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the 7th on the Left Bank are the classic romantic choice — old cafés, the Luxembourg gardens, excellent bistros and an easy walk to the Orsay and the river. The Marais, on the Right Bank across the 3rd and 4th, is livelier and younger, full of boutiques, wine bars and Place des Vosges. Both put you within walking distance or one Métro hop of nearly everything. For a quieter, more local feel at lower prices, look at the 11th around Oberkampf or the 9th below Pigalle. Whichever you pick, book one base for the whole trip and stay put: Paris is small enough that changing hotels only costs you an afternoon.

Do you need to book the Louvre and Eiffel Tower in advance?

Yes, and treat them as fixed appointments. Both run on timed-entry tickets that routinely sell out days or weeks ahead in season, and both have long walk-up queues you can avoid entirely by booking online direct rather than through a reseller. The Louvre is closed on Tuesdays; the Musée d'Orsay is closed on Mondays — a surprising number of weekend trips lose a museum to that alone. Notre-Dame is free to enter since it reopened, but reserving a slot in its official app saves you a substantial queue. Book the Eiffel Tower for dusk if you want both the daylight view and the city lit up.

How do you get around Paris?

Walk first, Métro second, and skip taxis almost entirely. Central Paris is far more compact than the map suggests — Saint-Germain to the Marais is a pleasant half-hour on foot along the river, and walking is how you actually see the city. When you need the Métro it is fast, frequent and cheap; buy fares on a rechargeable Navigo Easy card from any station machine or load them into the transport app on your phone, rather than hunting for paper tickets. From the airports, the RER B runs straight into the centre from Charles de Gaulle and Métro line 14 now runs direct from Orly, both of which beat sitting in traffic; a taxi into central Paris is a fixed, published flat fare, which makes it the easier choice with luggage or a group. Wear shoes you can do fifteen thousand steps in — the cobbles are unforgiving.

Is Paris good for a group trip or a special occasion?

It is superb for a couple and workable for a group, with one honest caveat: Parisian restaurants are small. A table for two is easy, a table for six needs booking well ahead, and a table for twelve rules out most of the places you actually want to eat. If you are travelling as a group, book every dinner before you fly, look at brasseries and bouillons which are built for numbers, and consider a rented apartment over separate hotel rooms. For a proposal, an anniversary or a milestone birthday, the reliable moves are a dusk slot up the Eiffel Tower, an early Sunday morning walk when the city is empty, and a long lunch somewhere you have booked rather than stumbled into.

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