Things to Do in Paris — The Complete Travel Guide

The Eiffel Tower is the obvious first entry and deserves its position. On a clear day the views are fantastic — and at night when it shimmers with 20,000 lights, it genuinely earns its reputation. The decision most visitors get wrong is when to go. Midday on a weekend produces hour-long queue times even with pre-booked tickets. The best times are early morning (opening, around 9:30am) for the clearest light and shortest queues, or evening when the illuminations begin. Eiffel Tower tickets are available online 60 days before your visit and tend to sell out fast — book at the official site toureiffel.paris as early as possible. If you want the view without the Eiffel Tower price, the Place du Trocadéro gives one of the best photo spots in Paris and the rooftop bar Ombres at Musée du Quai Branly has spectacular views of the tower.

The Louvre is the world''s most visited museum and contains over 35,000 works across 60,000 square metres — you cannot see it all, so the strategy of "walking in and seeing what happens" produces a frustrating experience for most visitors. Choose two or three specific things you want to see: the Mona Lisa (in the Denon Wing, room 711 — always crowded), the Venus de Milo (Sully Wing), the Winged Victory of Samothrace (Denon Wing, foot of the main stairs). For the Louvre without a wall of people between you and a masterpiece, come Friday nights after 6pm — extended hours mean significantly lower crowd density than daytime visits. Tickets can be bought from the official site louvre.fr — booking in advance is strongly recommended, especially in summer.

Montmartre is not a single attraction — it is a state of mind. This hilltop neighbourhood in the 18th arrondissement is where Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Modigliani lived, where the can-can was invented, where the Sacré-Cœur Basilica watches over the whole city. The neighbourhood transforms completely depending on when you visit. Arrive before 9am and the steep streets are quiet, the bakeries are just opening, and the views from the steps of Sacré-Cœur take in the whole of Paris in morning light. By 11am, tour groups arrive and the atmosphere changes. Sacré-Cœur entry is free (donations welcome) and the surrounding streets — Place du Tertre, Rue Lepic, the hidden vineyard — reward slow exploration. Notre-Dame Cathedral, having reopened after the 2019 fire, now allows visitors to climb the towers again — a significant addition to Paris in 2026.

The Musée d''Orsay is frequently the more rewarding museum visit for most travellers — it houses the world''s greatest collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art in a converted Beaux-Arts railway station whose architecture is itself remarkable. Monet, Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Seurat — the works here are among the most reproduced images in art history, and seeing them in person in a building of this scale is genuinely affecting. The museum is significantly less crowded than the Louvre, allowing you to stand in front of a Van Gogh self-portrait without a wall of phones between you and the canvas. The Musée d''Orsay sits along the scenic banks of the Seine — combine the visit with a walk along the river. Book tickets at musee-orsay.fr.

The Palace of Versailles is one of the most extraordinary buildings on earth — the absolute expression of royal ambition in 17th-century France, where Louis XIV''s court of 20,000 people operated from a palace of 2,300 rooms surrounded by 800 hectares of formal gardens. Getting the context of Louis XIV''s megalomania makes the experience far more interesting, and organised tours handle transport and skip-the-line entry. It is a full-day commitment and worth every minute. The gardens alone justify the trip — the garden fountain shows run on select weekends — check chateauversailles.fr for current 2026 dates. Tuesday through Thursday are the best days to visit — closed Mondays, and weekends are extremely crowded. Take the RER C train from central Paris (approximately 40 minutes).

At the heart of Place Charles de Gaulle, the Arc de Triomphe is one of Paris''s most iconic landmarks — built to honour French troops from the Napoleonic Wars and World Wars, this grand triumphal arch marks the western end of the Champs-Élysées, where twelve avenues meet at Place de l''Étoile. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with its eternal flame is inside. Climb to the top for the most spectacular 360-degree view of Paris — twelve avenues radiating outward with the Eiffel Tower in the distance. Entry is via an underground tunnel beneath the roundabout (do not try to cross the traffic). Walk the full length of the Champs-Élysées from the Arc to Place de la Concorde — roughly 1.9 km — to understand Paris''s grand urban design at its most ambitious scale.

Le Marais (4th arrondissement) is consistently the neighbourhood most visitors wish they had spent more time in. It holds the Place des Vosges (Paris''s oldest planned square, built 1612), the Musée Picasso, excellent falafel at L''As du Fallafel on Rue des Rosiers, the Marché des Enfants Rouges (Paris''s oldest covered market, dating to 1615), and a concentration of independent boutiques, art galleries, and bistros unmatched in the city. A Paris food tour in Le Marais — walking the neighbourhood, stopping at bakeries, fromageries, wine bars, and market stalls — is one of the most enjoyable ways to spend a morning in Paris. The neighbourhood is also the centre of Paris''s LGBTQ+ community and has an inclusive, diverse street energy that feels genuinely contemporary alongside its medieval architecture.

Saint-Germain-des-Prés (6th arrondissement) is the Paris of literary mythology — Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots were where Hemingway, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and James Baldwin wrote and argued and drank. Both cafés are now tourist landmarks themselves, expensive but worth one coffee for the atmosphere. The Luxembourg Gardens immediately to the south are the most beautiful formal park in Paris — the manicured paths, the octagonal pond, and the palace backdrop make an hour here feel genuinely restorative. The Rue de Buci market area and surrounding streets have excellent fromage and wine shops for assembling a picnic.

Belleville may not be the most famous neighbourhood in Paris — but it might be the coolest. The 20th arrondissement neighbourhood is where Paris''s artistic community has migrated as rents in Montmartre and Le Marais have risen — street art, independent galleries, and a food scene that mixes North African, Chinese, and contemporary French cuisines without any self-consciousness. The Parc de Belleville has the second-finest free view of Paris in the city (after Montmartre) and is almost entirely tourist-free. In summer, Parc de la Villette on the eastern edge of the city hosts an annual open-air cinema festival running July 22 to August 16, 2026, with English-language films shown in original language with French subtitles — and it is completely free to visit.

The Seine is Paris''s spine — and walking its banks from Notre-Dame (now reopened and accepting visitors after the 2019 fire restoration) westward past the Musée d''Orsay to the Eiffel Tower covers an extraordinary concentration of Paris''s finest sights in a single 5km walk. The Latin Quarter on the south bank — anchored by the Panthéon, the Sorbonne, and the Rue Mouffetard market — has the densest concentration of affordable restaurants in Paris and an intellectual atmosphere that the university''s presence maintains. A Seine River cruise at sunset is the single most efficient Paris sightseeing experience — you see the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame, the bridges, and the city''s Haussmanian silhouette all in 90 minutes from the water.