I have been to Paris over a dozen times in the last decade, however, my husband hasn’t been since 2015. We planned our visit to see some of our favorite tourist spots, plus explore more deeply some of our favorite neighborhoods.
Travel Tips
There is a lot of advice on how to make the most of your trip to Paris. We read all of it with great interest. Here are some of the tips we used to make the most of our visit.
- Transportation: Buying Metro tickets on iPhone was easy. Instead of buying a pass, we bought individual tickets as our hotel was centrally located, and the Metro wasn’t always required. We also used both Uber and G7 and we preferred G7. The main advantage is that G7 taxis can use the Taxi/bus lane which speeds up transport, especially during busy commute times.
- Buy tickets in advance and from official websites. I booked many of the tickets only a few weeks in advance, had I realized how quickly times sold out, I would have booked at least a month in advance for the Eiffel Tower, Orsay, and Saint Chapelle.
- Queues are crazy. As much as I tried to get the Notre Dame tickets online, couldn’t and had to wait in a long queue. Saint Chapelle was rigid about entry, you could not come in early and if you were late, you had to queue in the line without a ticket, Palace Garnier had only one line (didn’t matter if you had tickets, tour, or not). Versailles was 30 minutes + behind in timed ticket entry.
- Allow whitespace in your travel plans to enjoy the unexpected. Because we did not pack our schedule, we had time to visit a café, walk in a local park, or enjoy an impromptu performance.
- Location matters. We stayed at an aparthotel in the Marais. We were within most major sights 15-minute walk.
Highlights
We love Paris and there were so many highlights, here were the ones that created a magical trip.
- Tours: we took two amazing tours in Paris. Pinky Tours (https://pinkytourparis.com/en/paris-bynight/) took us through the heart of Paris in a vintage Citroen convertible at sunset, capturing the twinkling lights of the Eiffel Tower and a picnic dinner on the steps of Sacre Coeur. Eating Europe Marais was a food adventure through the heart of the Marais, our guide Betsy introduced us to some wonderful local places, hidden parks, and since we were staying in the Marais, we had so many places to go back to stock our kitchen.
Visiting local neighborhoods and local businesses. Paris has an amazing emerging coffee culture. we spent time in the Marais, Latin Quarter, and Montmartre visiting local coffee shops talking to the owners. Our French improved and we had so many great recommendations on what to explore in each neighborhood. For example, we learned of an awesome local pizza place (Bobbys) in Montmartre. In the Marais, we met one of the cooks at Miznon (amazing French and Israeli fusion food) and he shared dishes we did not order with us so that we could have a wonderful meal. We found a lovely shop, aptly named Shopping for Happiness, the owner has bespoke French artisan products and a love of dogs. She even gave us a discount so we could buy our dog Sophie a present.
Food: Paris has such a variety of foods. We enjoyed classic French Bistro at Café Charlot, Lebanese at Kubri, the lightest meringues at Aux Merveilleux (had one every day), and Oyster Club from fresh shellfish in a local place in the Marais.
Lowlights
- Instagram Influencers. This was a huge issue at the Palais Garnier, Versailles, and Orangerie. I can understand taking a picture, but do we really need costume changes, professional cameras, and taking 15 minutes or more for a photo.
- Louvre & Orangerie. If I had to do it over again, I would have passed on the Louvre and Orangerie. We could not get early entry times. It was crowded and uncomfortable.
- Chaotic queue management at some major sights.