I have been to Paris more times than I can justify to anyone who asks, and I have stopped trying to explain it. The city does something to you on first arrival that it never quite undoes — the scale of the boulevards, the smell of the bakeries, the way the light falls on the Seine at six in the evening — and you spend the rest of your life finding reasons to go back.
Where to Stay: Neighbourhoods That Actually Matter
The hotel price in Paris tracks almost perfectly with neighbourhood desirability, which means you pay a significant premium to stay in the Marais or Saint-Germain and a significant discount to stay somewhere slightly less central. I have done both, and my honest advice is to stay in the 11th arrondissement — Oberkampf, Bastille — where the restaurants are excellent, the bars are full of Parisians rather than tourists, and the Metro will have you at Notre-Dame in twelve minutes.
The Marais is worth understanding even if you do not stay there. It is the historic Jewish quarter, now also the centre of gay Paris, with excellent falafel on the Rue des Rosiers, beautiful Renaissance architecture around the Place des Vosges, and more galleries per square metre than anywhere else in the city.
The Museums: Go Early, Go Once, Then Go Again
The Louvre is one of the great art collections in the world and also one of the most exhausting buildings I have ever navigated. Arrive when it opens, go directly to whatever you most want to see (the Winged Victory, the Venus de Milo, the Vermeer rooms, the Italian paintings — not the Mona Lisa, which is smaller and more crowded than you expect), and leave after three hours before museum fatigue sets in.
The Musee d’Orsay, in a converted railway station across the river, has a better claim to being the most beautiful museum building in the world. The Impressionist collection on the top floor — Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cezanne — is extraordinary. The Pompidou Centre, with its inside-out architecture and superb modern art collection, rounds out a triumvirate of world-class institutions that would justify the trip on their own.
Food: What to Eat and Where
Parisian food culture operates at two parallel levels: the tourist-facing brasseries with laminated menus and the actual restaurants where Parisians eat. The second category is not hard to find — it requires only the willingness to walk a few streets from the main tourist areas and to book in advance — and the difference in quality and value is significant.
Eat a croissant every morning from a proper boulangerie, not a hotel breakfast. Have steak frites and a carafe of house red at a proper bistro at least once. Go to a market — the one at Boulevard Richard Lenoir on Sunday is excellent — and eat whatever looks best. Drink wine from a cave a manger where the bottles line the walls and the owner chooses something he thinks you should try. This is how Parisians eat, and it is considerably better than the tourist alternative.
Day Trips Worth Taking
Versailles is forty minutes by RER and genuinely extraordinary — the Hall of Mirrors, the formal gardens stretching to the horizon, the sheer excess of it — though it rewards an early start to beat the coach parties. Giverny, where Monet lived and painted his water lily series, is a ninety-minute drive and one of the most moving places I have visited in France: the actual garden, the actual pond, the actual bridge, so familiar from the paintings that reality and art seem briefly to overlap.
Champagne is two hours by TGV and the region’s cellar visits, most of which include tasting, are among the more civilised afternoons imaginable.
Practical Tips
- The Paris Museum Pass pays for itself within two major museum entries and skips the ticket queues — buy it before you arrive.
- The Metro is excellent; buy a carnet of ten tickets rather than individual journeys.
- Most Parisians speak more English than they let on initially. Starting any interaction with “Bonjour, parlez-vous anglais?” works considerably better than diving straight into English.
- Avoid August if possible — half the city goes on holiday and many of the best restaurants close.
Exploring more of France? Read our guide to 19 enchanting places to visit in France — Paris is just the beginning.
