5 Days: The Complete Paris Experience
Everything a first-time visitor needs, without the tourist traps
Five days is when Paris stops being tourism and starts being temporary residency. Three days and you're sprinting between landmarks. Four and you catch your breath. Five and you've got a favorite bakery, a shortcut through a courtyard that saves two minutes, and the dangerous feeling that maybe you could just... stay. We've front-loaded the big sights so you can ease into the real stuff. Days 1-3 hit the landmarks everyone comes for. Day 4 takes you to Versailles - which sounds like more tourism but actually makes you appreciate Paris more when you come back to human-scale streets and €2.50 café noisettes. Day 5 is when you stop looking at maps and start acting like someone who just happens to live here for a week.
Here's the thing about pacing: you'll want to cram more in. Don't. The best Paris moments happen when you're not rushing somewhere - stumbling into a boulangerie where the croissants are still warm at 3 PM, spotting a hidden courtyard through an open door, getting cheese opinions from someone who's been selling Roquefort for thirty years.
The daily rhythm matters too. Mornings are for sightseeing when crowds are thin and light is good. Lunch should last at least an hour - this isn't fuel, it's a pause. Afternoons are for wandering without a destination. Evenings are for sitting on a terrace with a €4.50 glass of Côtes du Rhône, watching the city do its evening thing.
Icons of the Right Bank
Start with the Eiffel Tower because you'll see it from everywhere else this week, and it's better to have been up there first. The Trocadero walk gives you the postcard shot, then you cross the river and watch it get impossibly bigger. By evening you're on a boat watching the whole city light up, and that's when this actually starts feeling real.
- Eiffel Tower - book timed entry online the night before (€29.40 elevator to top, €18.80 second floor)
- Start at Trocadero for the classic photo - Metro Line 6 or 9 to Trocadéro, walk 3 minutes
- Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Élysées stroll - skip the overpriced cafés, grab a €2.50 coffee at Columbus Café
- Evening Seine river cruise - Vedettes du Pont Neuf (€14) beats the touristy Bateaux Mouches
Art & Gardens
The Louvre is a full morning even when you're strategic about it. Stick to the Denon Wing - that's where the hits live. The Orangerie afterwards is your palate cleanser, two quiet rooms of Monet's Water Lilies after the sensory overload. By evening you've earned that long dinner in Saint-Germain where the waiter doesn't rush you.
- Louvre Museum - arrive at 9 AM sharp, focus on Denon Wing (€17, free first Sunday mornings Oct-Mar)
- Tuileries Garden break - grab a €1.80 café from Paul bakery on Rue de Rivoli
- Orangerie Museum for Monet's Water Lilies (€12.50) - usually no line, takes 45 minutes max
- Lunch on Rue de Rivoli - avoid the tourist traps, try Loulou Friendly Diner's €16 formule
- Dinner in Saint-Germain - Le Procope opens at 7:30 PM, coq au vin is €24 and worth it
Montmartre & Le Marais
These neighborhoods actually feel like a city, not a museum. Montmartre still looks like the village Renoir painted - narrow streets, that tiny vineyard, ivy growing over everything. Le Marais has the opposite energy: galleries, concept stores, people who dress better than you. Together they show you Paris isn't just one thing.
- Morning in Montmartre - Sacré-Cœur (free), Place du Tertre artists, skip the €8 portraits
- Musée de Montmartre (€12) and Renoir's garden - better views than Sacré-Cœur with no crowds
- Lunch in South Pigalle - Le Consulat's €18 lunch menu beats the tourist joints on Place du Tertre
- Afternoon in Le Marais - Place des Vosges galleries, Rue de Rosiers vintage shops
- L'As du Fallafel (€8) on Rue des Rosiers or sit-down dinner at Breizh Café (€22 mains)
Day Trip to Versailles
Versailles is 35 minutes on RER C and worth every minute of train time. The palace scale is genuinely absurd, but the real payoff is the gardens - most people rush through them, which is backwards. Marie Antoinette's Estate is a 20-minute walk that almost nobody makes, so you get fake-rustic cottages and a working farm mostly to yourself.
- RER C to Versailles-Château-Rive Gauche - €7.10 round trip, trains every 15 minutes
- Palace State Apartments and Hall of Mirrors - arrive by 9 AM (€20 palace ticket)
- Marie Antoinette's Estate - most people skip this, don't be most people (€12 extra, totally worth it)
- Lunch in the gardens or Ore restaurant inside the palace (€28 lunch menu, book ahead)
- Back in Paris by 6 PM for dinner - try Le Comptoir du 7ème near Invalides
Local Paris & Hidden Favorites
This is the day you stop being a tourist and start being someone who just happens to be in Paris. Morning markets where you buy cheese from the person who aged it, Luxembourg Gardens where you sit like you live here. Don't look at a map today - just wander and let the city show you what it's actually like.
- Morning at Marché d'Aligre (Tue-Sun) - real Parisians buying actual groceries, not tourist market
- Canal Saint-Martin walk - grab coffee at Ten Belles (€2.80 cortado), watch the lock boats
- Musée d'Orsay (€14) or Musée Rodin (€10) - whichever you missed earlier
- Luxembourg Gardens afternoon - chairs are free, bring a book from Shakespeare & Company
- Farewell dinner at Le Comptoir du Relais - no reservations, arrive at 7 PM sharp
Where to Stay
Le Marais (3rd-4th)
- -Walk to everything that matters in under 15 minutes
- -Best dinner variety - from €12 bistros to Michelin stars
- -Place des Vosges and Rue de Rosiers right outside your door
- -Mid-range hotels €120-200/night, some boutique gems under €150
Saint-Germain (6th)
- -Classic Left Bank energy - cafés where Sartre actually sat
- -Two blocks from Musée d'Orsay and Luxembourg Gardens
- -Restaurant scene skews upscale but worth the €35 dinner splurge
- -Quieter after 10 PM, feels more residential than touristy
Montmartre (18th)
- -Village vibe with actual vineyards and windmills still working
- -Steep hills mean great views but sore calves - wear good shoes
- -Metro ride to main sights but Sacré-Cœur is literally your backyard
- -Hotels €80-150/night, best value in central Paris by far
Essential Tips
Buy a Navigo Easy card at any metro station and load 10 rides for €16.90. Way cheaper than €2.15 singles, and you won't waste time at ticket machines when you're trying to catch the last metro at 1:15 AM.
French restaurants serve lunch 12-2 PM sharp, dinner starting 7:30 PM. Show up at 6 PM and you'll find either a tourist trap or a locked door. The €15-20 lunch formules are always better value than dinner prices.
Tipping is already included in French prices (service compris). Adding 20% like in the US marks you as a tourist immediately. Round up €1-2 for good service, leave €5 maximum at fancy places.
Skip the Eiffel Tower restaurants - they're overpriced and mediocre. That €180 dinner is €35 worth of food with a €145 view tax. Eat well nearby at Le Comptoir du 7ème, then come back for photos.
Ready to Visit Paris?
Get a personalized itinerary tailored to your travel style and interests.
Plan Your Paris TripMore Paris Guides
3 Days in Paris for Art Lovers
You don't come to Paris for three days to tick museums off a list - you come because this is where art lives in your daily coffee run, not just behind velvet ropes. Walk down any street and you'll pass 18th-century sculptures used as actual street corners, gallery windows that change every two weeks, and bistros where the owner's personal Picasso sketch hangs next to the wine list like it's no big deal. The sequencing here isn't random. We're moving through art history chronologically - Day 1 classical masters (Louvre, Orangerie), Day 2 impressionists (Orsay, Rodin, Left Bank galleries), Day 3 modern and what's happening now (Centre Pompidou, Montmartre). Each morning anchors you in a major museum when your brain's fresh, each afternoon turns you loose in neighborhoods where artists actually work. We save Montmartre for last because ending where Picasso and Renoir actually painted, looking down at the city you've been walking through for three days, feels like the only way to finish. Plus by Day 3, you'll understand why they all came here.
3 min read
Paris on a Budget: A Practical Guide
Look, Paris doesn't have to cost €200 a day. I've spent weeks there spending €50 without once feeling like I was slumming it. The secret isn't suffering through bad meals and skipping museums - it's knowing which things are overpriced and which are practically free. A croissant from the best bakery in the neighborhood costs €1.20, same as one from the worst. The Sacré-Cœur steps have a better view than most paid observation decks. And a bottle of Côtes du Rhône from a cave costs €6 - what you'd pay for one glass at a tourist cafe. Here's how to do Paris right for €50-70 a day, without once feeling like you're missing out.
3 min read
Where to Eat in Paris: A Neighborhood Food Guide
Every Paris neighborhood has its own food DNA, and once you crack the code, you'll never eat badly again. The Marais serves the city's best falafel for €7 and wine bars where €24 gets you three courses. Saint-Germain has those zinc-bar bistros with handwritten menus - but skip dinner and go for the €18 lunch formules instead. Here's what most guides won't tell you: the real action is in Belleville's hand-pulled noodle shops and Canal Saint-Martin's Australian-run coffee counters. The Chinese beef noodle soup at Les Pâtes Vivantes costs €6.50 and could feed two people. Meanwhile, tourists are paying €25 for mediocre pasta around the Eiffel Tower. And yes, absolutely skip any restaurant on Champs-Élysées - even the French can't make decent food there. Here's where to eat instead.
5 min read