Three Days in,
Paris.
Paris, France
museums, riverside walks, cafes, late-summer light
Itinerary
3 chaptersThe Louvre and the Tuileries
1st arrondissement, Paris
The day
Two of the biggest museums in Paris in one day sounds punishing, and it would be if you tried to see all of both. You are not. The morning belongs to the Louvre's Denon wing and the sculpture galleries beside it, and nothing else. Lunch is on the Café Marly terrace with the pyramid a few metres away, then an hour in the Tuileries doing very little, which you will need. The Musée d'Orsay is the smaller, kinder building, and the top-floor Impressionist rooms are what you have saved your legs for. Dinner is over in Saint-Germain, at a café that has been feeding the same square since the 1880s.
Worth knowing
Book a timed Louvre slot online and go in through the Carrousel entrance under the arcade rather than the pyramid. The queue is usually shorter and it is out of the sun. The Louvre shuts on Tuesdays and the Orsay shuts on Mondays, so this order only works on the right days. The Orsay opens late on Thursday evenings, which takes the pressure off the afternoon.
Wear shoes you would happily walk 8 km in, because you will. Anyone under 26 and resident in the EU gets into both museums free, so carry ID. The Tuileries costs nothing at all, and the chairs are free too. Book Café Marly if you can, and ask for a table on the rail.
Getting between stops
Nothing today needs a metro ticket. Café Kitsuné to the Louvre is about eight minutes through the Palais Royal courtyard, Café Marly is inside the Louvre's own arcade, and the Tuileries begin where the Louvre ends. From the far end of the garden, the Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor takes you over the Seine to the Orsay in roughly ten minutes. Saint-Germain is another twelve on foot from there, along Rue de Lille and Rue des Saints-Pères.
A few local notes
Say bonjour when you walk into anywhere, a museum shop included. Tap water is free and completely normal to ask for, "une carafe d'eau, s'il vous plaît", and service is already in the price, so a euro or two left behind is generous rather than expected. In the Salle des États, everyone crowds the Mona Lisa and ignores the enormous Veronese on the opposite wall, which is the better painting to stand in front of. Café terraces in August belong to whoever sits down first, and nobody will move you on.
- 0108:00 · 45m
Cafe Kitsune Palais Royal
Small, and mostly a stand-and-go counter, so do not expect to settle in. The matcha latte is what the queue is for, an espresso is quicker. Ten minutes here is enough, then walk out into the Palais Royal garden and loop Buren's striped columns in the courtyard next door before the Louvre opens.About this place↗ Open in MapsA small coffee bar under the arcades of the Palais Royal garden, run by the French-Japanese label Maison Kitsuné.
HistoryMaison Kitsuné began in the early 2000s as a record label and clothing brand founded by Gildas Loaëc and Masaya Kuroki, and later added cafés in Paris and Tokyo. This one put the counter inside a seventeenth-century royal arcade.Why it's famousThe matcha latte and the address. It became a fixture on every Paris coffee list and one of the most photographed counters in the city.Did you knowKitsuné means fox in Japanese, which is where the brand's fox logo comes from. - 0209:00 · 150m
Louvre Museum
Book a timed slot and use the Carrousel entrance under the arcade rather than the pyramid. Two and a half hours buys you the Denon wing and the Greek galleries, not much more. See the Mona Lisa first thing or last thing, never at midday. Closed on Tuesdays.About this place↗ Open in MapsThe largest art museum in the world, housed in a former royal palace on the Right Bank of the Seine.
HistoryIt started as a fortress under Philippe Auguste around 1190, grew into a royal residence, then lost the court to Versailles. It opened as a public museum in 1793, during the Revolution, and I. M. Pei's glass pyramid became the main entrance in 1989.Why it's famousThe Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and by now the pyramid itself.Did you knowParts of the original medieval fortress still stand in the basement, and you can walk along the foot of its moat walls. - 0312:00 · 75m
Cafe Marly
The terrace under the Richelieu arcade looks straight at the pyramid, and that view is most of what you are paying for. Ask for a table on the rail and book if you can. The food is decent rather than remarkable, so keep the order simple and take your time over it.About this place↗ Open in MapsA restaurant set into the arcades of the Louvre's Richelieu wing, with a terrace facing the glass pyramid.
HistoryIt opened in the 1990s, once the Grand Louvre works had reorganised the palace and its courtyards, and it belongs to the Costes family of Paris restaurants.Why it's famousThe position. Very few tables in Paris put you inside a museum courtyard with a view like this one.Did you knowThe Richelieu wing above the terrace held the French finance ministry until the late 1980s, when the ministry moved to Bercy and the museum took the space. - 0413:30 · 60m
Tuileries Garden
Free, and open late in summer. The green metal chairs exist to be dragged around, so take one to the round basin and sit for a while. Small sailing boats can be hired by the pond. An hour is plenty, and the walk west towards Place de la Concorde is shaded most of the way.About this place↗ Open in MapsA large formal garden running between the Louvre and Place de la Concorde, free and open to everyone.
HistoryCatherine de' Medici laid it out in 1564 beside her new Tuileries Palace, and André Le Nôtre redesigned it in the 1660s along strict geometric lines. The palace burned during the Commune in 1871 and was never rebuilt, which is why the garden now runs straight into the Louvre.Why it's famousOne of the oldest public gardens in Paris, and the green stretch of the long axis that runs from the Louvre out to the Arc de Triomphe.Did you knowThe name comes from the tile kilns, tuileries, that worked on this ground before the palace was built. - 0514:45 · 120m
Musee d'Orsay
Go straight up to the top floor for the Impressionists and the view out through the clock face, then work your way down. Two hours is realistic. Closed on Mondays, open late on Thursdays. Under 26 and resident in the EU means free entry, so bring ID.About this place↗ Open in MapsA museum of French art from roughly 1848 to 1914, in a converted railway station on the Left Bank.
HistoryVictor Laloux built the Gare d'Orsay for the World's Fair of 1900. Its platforms were too short for longer post-war trains, the station fell out of use, and after years of arguing about demolition it reopened as a museum in 1986.Why it's famousThe Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection, with Monet, Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh and Cézanne under one roof.Did you knowThe station's original clocks are still there, and you can stand behind one of them and look across the Seine through the glass. - 0619:30 · 120m
Les Deux Magots
A café before it is a restaurant, so keep the order simple. An omelette, a croque or a plate of oysters all work. Terrace for watching the square, inside for the room itself. Prices match the address. Nobody will hurry you off the table once you have paid.About this place↗ Open in MapsA large café on Place Saint-Germain-des-Prés, facing the old abbey church, open since the late nineteenth century.
HistoryThe name came from a novelty shop on the site that sold silk under the sign of two Chinese figures. The shop became a café in 1885, and by the twentieth century it was a working address for the writers and painters living in the quarter.Why it's famousSartre and Simone de Beauvoir wrote here, Hemingway drank here, and the café has awarded its own literary prize since 1933.Did you knowThe two carved figures the café is named after are still in the room, mounted on a pillar above the tables.
Rue Cler, the Eiffel Tower and Rodin's garden
7th arrondissement, Paris
The day
Yesterday was parquet floors and paintings. Today is mostly outdoors, plus one very large piece of ironwork. Rue Cler wakes up slowly around its stalls, which is the right speed for a first coffee, and the tower is a quarter of an hour's walk from the last of them. Once the lift comes back down, lunch is a blanket on the Champ de Mars with the thing directly overhead. The Rodin Museum is the quiet stretch of the day, and most of it happens in the garden rather than the house. Then the river at golden hour, and a bistro table on Rue Saint-Dominique. Tomorrow starts with a climb up to Montmartre, so this is the dinner to sit over.
Worth knowing
Book the summit lift online well before you travel, because August slots go early. If it has sold out, the stairs to the second floor cost less, queue less and give you the better photographs anyway. Bags are searched at the perimeter, so arrive a few minutes ahead of your slot rather than on it, and leave anything bigger than a small rucksack at the hotel.
Do the picnic shopping on Rue Cler straight after breakfast, while the stalls are still full. The Rodin Museum sells a cheaper garden-only ticket, which is all you need if the sculptures are the draw. Café Constant takes no bookings, so turn up by 19:45 or wait at the bar with a glass. Pack a light layer for the evening, because the wind comes off the Seine even in August.
Getting between stops
No metro today. Café du Marché to the tower is sixteen minutes on foot, and the picnic lawn is nine minutes past the legs of it. The long leg is the tower to the Rodin Museum, around twenty-six minutes, so leave the grass earlier than feels necessary. Rodin down to the quays is fourteen minutes, and Café Constant is four minutes from where the evening walk ends. If the heat wins, RER C from Pont de l'Alma covers the river stretch in a single stop.
A few local notes
On Rue Cler, greet the stallholder before you point at anything. It is a small thing and it changes the answer you get. Picnicking on the Champ de Mars is completely ordinary, but take your rubbish with you, because the bins are overflowing by mid-afternoon on a sunny day. At the foot of the tower you will be offered bracelets and little metal Eiffel Towers, and a flat "non merci" without breaking stride is the local response. After dark the tower sparkles for five minutes on the hour, and the quays fill up with Parisians walking off dinner.
- 0108:00 · 45m
Cafe du Marche
A corner café rather than a destination, which is exactly the point. A croissant and a café crème at an outside table, twenty minutes, done. It fills fast at weekends. Do the Rue Cler shopping for the picnic straight afterwards, while the stalls are still fully stocked.About this place↗ Open in MapsA busy corner café on Rue Cler, the pedestrian market street of the 7th arrondissement.
HistoryRue Cler has traded in food for well over a century, and its cafés grew up to serve the stallholders and residents rather than visitors. This one sits at one of the street's junctions and still works that way in the morning.Why it's famousIt is the everyday version of a Paris café terrace, a short walk from the Eiffel Tower, which is why it ends up on so many first-morning plans.Did you knowRue Cler owes much of its fame with English-speaking travellers to the guidebook writer Rick Steves, who has recommended the street for decades. - 0209:30 · 120m
Eiffel Tower
Book the summit lift weeks ahead, because the slots go. If it has sold out, the stairs to the second floor cost less, queue less and frame the better photographs anyway. Allow two hours door to door, more once the bag check is busy. Nothing bigger than a small rucksack.About this place↗ Open in MapsA 330 m iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars, and the most visited paid monument in the world.
HistoryIt went up between 1887 and 1889 for the World's Fair marking a century since the Revolution, designed by Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier of Gustave Eiffel's firm. A group of Paris artists and writers signed a public protest against it while it was still being built.Why it's famousIt is the shorthand for Paris, and it was the tallest structure on earth for about forty years, until the Chrysler Building passed it in 1930.Did you knowThe permit ran for twenty years and the tower was meant to come down in 1909. It survived because the army found it useful as a radio mast. - 0312:00 · 75m
Champ de Mars picnic
Buy on Rue Cler, eat here. There is no shade on the central lawns, so move under the trees along the sides if the sun is strong. Some lawns are fenced off to recover, and the open ones are obvious. Take your rubbish with you, because the bins fill by early afternoon.About this place↗ Open in MapsA long public park stretching from the foot of the Eiffel Tower down to the École Militaire.
HistoryIt was laid out in the eighteenth century as the drill ground for the military academy, which is where the name comes from, Mars being the Roman god of war. Later it held revolutionary gatherings and several World's Fairs, including the one the tower was built for.Why it's famousThis is the lawn the tower gets photographed from, and the place Parisians actually sit on a warm evening.Did you knowThe Fête de la Fédération of 1790, one of the largest public gatherings of the Revolution, was held here, and much of the ground was dug out beforehand by ordinary Parisians turning up with wheelbarrows. - 0414:00 · 90m
Rodin Museum
The garden is the reason to come. If the sculpture is all you want, the garden-only ticket costs less and still gets you The Thinker and The Gates of Hell. Ninety minutes covers house and grounds at an easy pace. Closed on Mondays. There is a café under the trees at the back.About this place↗ Open in MapsA museum of Auguste Rodin's work in the Hôtel Biron, an eighteenth-century mansion with a large sculpture garden.
HistoryRodin took rooms in the house from 1908, when it was a run-down building let cheaply to artists. He offered his entire collection to the French state on condition that it be shown here, and the museum opened in 1919, two years after he died.Why it's famousThe Thinker, The Gates of Hell and The Kiss, shown in the rooms and gardens where Rodin actually worked.Did you knowThe poet Rainer Maria Rilke worked as Rodin's secretary and was the one who told him about the Hôtel Biron. Matisse rented rooms in the same house. - 0518:00 · 90m
Seine evening walk
Start on the Left Bank near Pont de l'Alma and walk east with the light behind you. Ninety minutes at a slow pace gets you to the footbridge by the Musée d'Orsay. The lower quays are closed to traffic and far better for walking than the pavements above. Take a layer.About this place↗ Open in MapsThe stretch of riverbank between the Eiffel Tower and the Musée d'Orsay, walkable at water level almost the whole way.
HistoryThe stone quays took their present shape in the nineteenth century, when the river was embanked for flood control and navigation. Stretches of the lower roadway were closed to cars from the 2010s and handed over to walkers and cyclists.Why it's famousThe central Paris riverbanks were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1991, and this is the postcard section of them.Did you knowThe footbridge by the Orsay opened in 1999 as the Passerelle Solférino and was renamed in 2006 after Léopold Sédar Senghor, the poet who became Senegal's first president. - 0620:00 · 120m
Cafe Constant
No bookings, so turn up around 19:45 or wait at the bar. Tight tables over two floors and quick service. Roast chicken and profiteroles are what people come for. If it is full, Rue Saint-Dominique has several decent alternatives within a hundred metres or so.About this place↗ Open in MapsA small bistro on Rue Saint-Dominique in the 7th, cooking classic French dishes without the white tablecloths.
HistoryIt was opened by Christian Constant, who had run the kitchen at the Hôtel de Crillon before leaving palace hotels behind to cook simpler food on a single street in the 7th, where he ended up running several places at once.Why it's famousIt helped make the idea of a serious chef behind a plain, affordable bistro normal in Paris, and the roast chicken and profiteroles became the standard order.Did you knowChefs who trained under Constant at the Crillon, Yves Camdeborde and Éric Frechon among them, went on to run their own well-known Paris kitchens.
Montmartre, then the Marais
Montmartre, Paris
The day
Montmartre in the morning, the Marais from mid-afternoon, with one metro ride in between to reset the day. Get up the hill early, because the lanes above Place du Tertre belong to the people who live there until about ten, and after that they belong to everyone. Coffee at the pink house, the white dome and the view over the rooftops, then the village streets and a slow lunch in a walled garden. The second half is flatter and easier: arcades, a square that has looked much the same since Henri IV, and a bistro that will keep you at the table until it is properly dark.
Worth knowing
Montmartre is steep and cobbled, so this is not the day for new shoes. The funicular up the hill takes an ordinary metro ticket, which most people work out only halfway up the steps. The basilica is free to walk into. The dome climb is a separate ticket and a few hundred steps with no lift, and it is worth the legs.
At Place du Tertre, agree a price before anyone starts drawing you, or keep walking. The Maison de Victor Hugo on Place des Vosges is free for its permanent rooms and takes about half an hour. Book Chez Janou a few days out, and do not order a pudding each.
Getting between stops
La Maison Rose to Sacré-Cœur is five minutes uphill, and the lanes and lunch all sit within three or four minutes of the square. Crossing to the Marais is the only real journey of the trip. Walk down to Abbesses, take line 12 to Madeleine, then line 8 to Chemin Vert, which leaves you two minutes from Place des Vosges. Allow thirty-five minutes door to door. Chez Janou is another five minutes on foot from the square.
A few local notes
Abbesses is one of the deepest stations in Paris and its spiral staircase runs to well over a hundred steps, so take the lift. The vineyard on Rue des Saules is real and very small, and the October harvest turns into a proper neighbourhood festival. Keep an eye on your bag around the Sacré-Cœur steps and the funicular, where the crowd is thickest. In the Marais, plenty of shops and restaurants open on Sunday and close on Monday instead, the reverse of most of the city.
- 0108:30 · 45m
La Maison Rose
Get here before 09:30 or you are queuing behind a photo shoot. Coffee and something small is the right order, the food is beside the point. Fifteen minutes at an outside table is plenty. Walk down Rue de l'Abreuvoir afterwards, it is the best-looking street on the hill.About this place↗ Open in MapsA small pink restaurant on a corner of Rue de l'Abreuvoir in Montmartre, painted many times by the artists who lived around it.
HistoryIn the early twentieth century the house was run by Laure Gargallo, known as Germaine, who belonged to the circle of Spanish and French painters then living on the hill. Maurice Utrillo painted the building, and the pink walls have been kept ever since.Why it's famousUtrillo's canvases turned the pink corner house into one of the most recognisable images of Montmartre.Did you knowGermaine, who ran the house, was the woman whose rejection of the painter Carles Casagemas led to his suicide in 1901, the death that pushed his friend Picasso into the Blue Period. - 0209:30 · 90m
Sacre-Coeur
Entry to the basilica is free and the queue moves. The funicular takes a standard metro ticket if you would rather not do the steps. The dome climb is a separate ticket and a few hundred steps, and it beats the terrace view. Shoulders covered, and keep quiet inside, it is a working church.About this place↗ Open in MapsA white basilica on the summit of the Montmartre hill, visible from most of northern Paris.
HistoryBuilding began in 1875, after France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune, as a national act of penance. Paul Abadie designed it in a Romano-Byzantine style unlike anything else in the city, and it was not finished until 1914 or consecrated until 1919.Why it's famousThe dome and the terrace below it give one of the widest views over Paris, and the building is the landmark of Montmartre from every direction.Did you knowThe stone is travertine from Château-Landon, which gives off calcite in the rain, so the basilica bleaches itself white instead of turning grey with age. - 0311:15 · 75m
Montmartre lanes
Place du Tertre is thick with painters and their prices, so agree a figure before anyone starts sketching, or just walk through. The better hour is on the streets around it. Rue des Saules drops past the vineyard, and Rue Saint-Rustique is the oldest lane up here. Watch your bag in the crowd.About this place↗ Open in MapsThe village streets around Place du Tertre, including the small working vineyard on Rue des Saules.
HistoryMontmartre was a hill village outside Paris, full of windmills, quarries and cheap rent, and it was only absorbed into the city in 1860. The low rents brought the painters, and Place du Tertre was an ordinary village square long before it became a market for portraits.Why it's famousRenoir, Picasso, Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec all lived or worked within a few streets of here.Did you knowThe Clos Montmartre vineyard was planted in 1933 to stop the plot being built on, and its harvest is still marked with a neighbourhood festival every October. - 0412:45 · 75m
La Bonne Franquette
The garden terrace is the reason to book rather than the dining room. Traditional French cooking at traditional length, so give it a good hour and a quarter. The set menus are better value than ordering course by course. It stands on the corner of Rue des Saules and Rue Saint-Rustique.About this place↗ Open in MapsA long-standing Montmartre auberge just off Place du Tertre, with a walled garden behind it.
HistoryThere has been an inn on this corner since the nineteenth century, when Montmartre was still a village and its cheap tables and cabarets drew the painters living nearby.Why it's famousImpressionist and Post-Impressionist painters drank here, and its garden ended up on canvas.Did you knowVan Gogh's 1886 painting of a Montmartre guinguette, now hanging in the Musée d'Orsay, shows this garden. - 0516:00 · 75m
Place des Vosges
Walk the arcades first, then the square. The Maison de Victor Hugo on the corner is free for its permanent rooms and takes about half an hour. In summer the central lawns are open to sit on. The cafés under the arcades charge for the setting, and there are better tables a street or two away.About this place↗ Open in MapsA square of thirty-six matching brick and stone pavilions in the Marais, with arcades running the whole way round.
HistoryHenri IV had it built between 1605 and 1612 as the Place Royale, on ground where a royal palace had stood, and it set the pattern for planned squares across Europe. It was renamed Place des Vosges in 1800, after the first département to pay a new tax.Why it's famousIt is the oldest planned square in Paris and the calmest large open space in the Marais.Did you knowVictor Hugo lived at number 6 for sixteen years and began Les Misérables there. His flat is now a free museum. - 0619:30 · 120m
Chez Janou
Book, because it fills. Provençal cooking and a very long pastis list. The chocolate mousse arrives as a big bowl left on the table for you to help yourself, so order fewer puddings than there are of you. Tables are close together and it gets loud, which is half the appeal.About this place↗ Open in MapsA Provençal bistro on a corner near Place des Vosges, in the 3rd arrondissement.
HistoryIt has run as a small neighbourhood bistro for decades, keeping the zinc bar, the tiled floor and a southern French menu instead of modernising with the rest of the Marais.Why it's famousThe help-yourself chocolate mousse, and one of the longest pastis selections in Paris.Did you knowPastis is drunk long in the south, roughly five parts water to one of spirit, which is what turns it cloudy in the glass.
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