Paris is much more than the Eiffel Tower. An honest guide to the experiences that really shape a first trip to the City of Light: what to see, when to go, what to avoid, and how to move around like you've been here before.
Paris isn't visited, it's experienced. It's one of those destinations that catches almost everyone off guard: either you love it more than you expected, or you realize most of what you'd pictured was just postcards. Either way, the city wins. After several visits and dozens of conversations with travelers fresh off the plane, we've filtered down the experiences that truly deserve a spot on your map, along with the tricks no one tells you the first time.
1. Climb the Eiffel Tower at sunset
Yes, it's a cliché. And yes, it's worth it. The key is timing: book your ticket for roughly 45 minutes before sunset. First you see Paris in daylight, then the city lights up like a circuit. Elevator tickets to the top floor run around 30 EUR; on a tighter budget, climbing the stairs to the second floor costs half and the effort becomes part of the memory.
Practical tip: book on the official site (toureiffel.paris) at least two weeks ahead. In high season everything sells out in days. And bring a layer even in summer: it's always 5-8 degrees colder at the top, and the wind bites.
2. Get lost in Le Marais
This is where Paris loosens its tie. A former Jewish quarter turned bohemian haven and one of the city's LGBTQ+ hearts, Le Marais still feels like real Parisians live there. Wander down Rue des Rosiers (home to the city's best falafel at L'As du Fallafel), drop by Place des Vosges (Paris' oldest square, where Victor Hugo lived), and save at least an hour for the Musée Carnavalet, a museum about the history of the city that's also free.
On Sundays, most of the neighborhood stays open while the rest of Paris sleeps: it's one of the few places where you can shop, eat, and stroll without running into closed shutters.
3. Visit the Louvre (with a strategy)
The Louvre is the largest museum in the world. Try to see it all in a day and you'll leave defeated, remembering nothing. The trick is to walk in with a three-stop plan: you head straight for them, and anything that catches your eye on the way is a bonus.
Three routes that work well:
Greatest hits: Venus de Milo, Winged Victory of Samothrace, Mona Lisa. 90 minutes.
Antiquities: Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Greek sculpture. The winged bulls of Khorsabad are as impressive as any painting and almost never crowded.
French painting: Liberty Leading the People, The Coronation of Napoleon, The Raft of the Medusa. Huge rooms, nearly empty first thing in the morning.
Enter through Porte des Lions if you can: it's the least-known entrance and you skip the pyramid queue entirely. Wednesdays and Fridays the museum stays open until 21:45 and from 18:00 onward it's practically empty.
4. Seine river cruise at dusk
It looks like the most touristy thing in the world, and still it's one of the best ways to understand Paris. From the river you see how the monuments connect: Notre-Dame, the Louvre, the Conciergerie, the Musée d'Orsay, the Grand Palais, the Eiffel Tower. All in about an hour.
Bateaux Mouches leave every 30 minutes from Pont de l'Alma (around 15 EUR), but if you want something less crowded try the Vedettes du Pont Neuf: smaller boats, a central departure point, and the same route. Pick the 20:00 departure between May and September and you catch the sunset and the monument lights in the same trip.
5. Montmartre and the Sacré-Cœur
Montmartre works best early in the morning, before the tour buses arrive. Get there around 8:30, climb the steps to the Sacré-Cœur slowly, and step inside the basilica (it's free, but keep quiet: it's still an active place of worship where nuns have prayed in perpetual adoration since 1885).
Then head down the lesser-known north side: Rue Lepic, the Moulin de la Galette, the Place du Tertre before it fills up with easels. If you have time, stop by the Musée de Montmartre (it used to be Renoir's studio) and finish with a coffee at La Maison Rose, the pink building everyone photographs. Montmartre isn't just about the views: it's the only piece of Paris that still feels like a village.
6. Eat croissants at a neighborhood boulangerie
A croissant in Paris shouldn't cost more than 1.50 EUR. If you see one at 4 EUR, you're in a tourist zone, turn around. Real neighborhood boulangeries are easy to spot: they smell like butter from the street and have a line of locals at 8 in the morning.
Our favorites:
Du Pain et des Idées (10th, next to Canal Saint-Martin). Wins awards every year and still feels like a neighborhood spot.
Cyril Lignac (several locations). His hazelnut pain au chocolat is hard to forget.
Boulangerie Utopie (11th). Lesser known, quality on par with the big names.
Order one au beurre and eat it warm, standing on the street. It's one of those experiences that don't need a table.
7. Stroll through the Luxembourg Gardens
Parisians come here to read, nap in the green chairs you can drag wherever you like, and watch kids sail miniature boats in the octagonal pond. It's a ritual that hasn't changed in decades.
Tip: pick something up at the fromagerie or boulangerie on your way (a slice of Comté, a baguette, a handful of grapes) and stage your own low-key picnic. It's technically forbidden but in practice the whole city does it. The most coveted benches are the ones facing the palace, from 16:00 on, when the sun slips through the trees.
8. Explore Saint-Germain-des-Prés
This is where Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Hemingway, and Camus wrote. The cafés are the same (Les Deux Magots, Café de Flore) and they charge 7 EUR for an espresso: you're paying for the stage, not the drink. Order at the bar (half the price) and spend the time watching.
Two minutes away you'll find the Saint-Germain-des-Prés church, the oldest in Paris (6th century), and the L'Écume des Pages bookshop, one of the few that's still around. If you have an hour free, cross the bridge to the Musée d'Orsay: it's right across and the Impressionists deserve whatever plan you had in mind.
9. See Paris from the Centre Pompidou
The Pompidou's exterior escalators are among the best free views in the city. If you buy the museum ticket (14 EUR), the top floor has a 360-degree terrace plus one of the most complete contemporary art collections in the world. Kandinsky, Matisse, Picasso, Duchamp: all under one roof.
Bonus: the plaza outside is one of the few places where Parisians still stop for real street music. Sit on the ground with the rest of them and enjoy.
10. Dine at an authentic bistrot
Golden rule: walk at least 400 meters from the nearest monument. Paris has thousands of great bistrots, but almost none are on the tourist front line. In the 11th (Oberkampf, Bastille), the 5th (Mouffetard), and the 20th (Belleville) you'll find lunch menus for 18-22 EUR and full dinners for 30-35 EUR with wine.
Three addresses that have always worked for us:
Le Petit Vendôme (2nd): for a quick lunch featuring the legendary Parisian sandwich.
Bouillon Pigalle (9th): traditional bouillon, generous portions, almost absurd prices (starters from 3 EUR, mains from 10 EUR).
Chez Janou (3rd): Provençal cooking in the heart of Le Marais, with over 80 pastis on the menu.
Always book by phone or on TheFork. And don't ask for the bill: l'addition, s'il vous plaît is the code.
Small details that change the trip
Paris is more enjoyable when you're not dragging a bad night behind you. The most underrated trick of the frequent traveler is silly comfort: a decent pair of reusable ergonomic earplugs for the flight and the hotel is the difference between arriving rested and crawling into the Louvre. Nothing glamorous, but it works.
And if, like us, you'd rather not pull out your phone every time you want to film something, a compact camera like the DJI Osmo Action 4 captures the sunset from the Eiffel Tower or the Seine cruise far better than a phone, without the weight of serious gear. We take one on city trips more for comfort than for results, and even then the results speak for themselves.
On the ground, less is more. Paris rewards walking, so every extra kilogram weighs on you by the end of the day. We usually travel with a cabin-size backpack compatible with Ryanair and Vueling that pulls double duty: carry-on on the plane and day bag once you're in the city. It saves you the hold fee, keeps you independent between metro stops, and fits in any station locker.
If you feel like making it real
If after reading all of this you feel like turning it into an actual trip, we've put together a 5-day itinerary that covers these experiences (and several more) at a realistic pace. You can check it out in our Paris: The City of Light pack: use it as a ready-made guide or as inspiration for building your own. Either way, the idea is the same: Paris isn't conquered, it's allowed to happen. And, as happens with few cities, once you've let it happen, you want to come back.
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