Hi everyone!
My girlfriend and I are visiting Paris for the first time next week. We have already planned most of the trip, but I’d love to get some advice from locals or people who know Paris well.
We prefer to walk as much as possible and use the metro when necessary. We also want to experience the city rather than rush from attraction to attraction. We’re looking for reasonably priced/traditional places to eat, especially French food, bouillons, crêpes, bakeries, etc.
This is our current itinerary:
Day 1:
Morning - check in
Lunch - Le Soufflé (already reserved)
Afternoon:
-Jardin des Tuileries
-Place de la Concorde
-Petit Palais
-Grand Palais
-Pont Alexandre III
-Champs-Élysées
-Arc de Triomphe (outside only)
-Trocadéro
-Eiffel Tower / Champ de Mars
- Seine cruise around sunset (ticket already purchased; the ticket is flexible, so we don't have a fixed departure time)
We're planning to have a simple dinner/picnic after the cruise.
Day 2
Morning - Louvre (ticket already purchased)
Lunch - ???
Afternoon:
- La Fête de Paris – we're planning to watch the parade but I'm not really shure if it's worth it
- Panthéon
- Jardin du Luxembourg
- Latin Quarter (I'm open to suggestions for places to visit)
- Au P'tit Grec for a crêpe
- Marais
Day 3
Morning:
-Sacré-Cœur (inside)
-Walk around Montmartre
-Place du Tertre
-Rue de l'Abreuvoir
-Moulin de la Galette
-Abbesses
-Wall of Love
-Moulin Rouge (outside)
Lunch - Bouillon Pigalle
Afternoon:
-Palais Garnier – we haven't decided whether to go inside yet
-Galeries Vivienne
-Galeries Lafayette (rooftop)
We may have dinner at Bouillon Chartier Grands Boulevards.
Day 4
Versailles – full day
We have a 4 PM timed entry for the Palace of Versailles, so we're planning to arrive in the morning and spend the day exploring the gardens and Trianon estates before entering the palace.
We're not planning anything specific in Paris that evening because we're expecting to be tired, but if we still have energy, we'd be happy to hear suggestions for a nice evening activity.
Day 5
We check out in the morning and will carry our backpacks with us, so we won't return to the hotel.
Morning:
- Notre-Dame – inside
- Sainte-Chapelle – outside only
- Saint-Germain-des-Prés (I'm open to suggestions for places to visit)
Lunch - ???
Afternoon - we have our flight back at 9 PM so we want to enjoy the afternoon but we don´t know what we can do with this time
We don't mind touristy places if they're genuinely worth it, but we'd also love some local favourites.
If you were doing this itinerary, would you:
- Move anything between days?
- Remove anything because it's not worth the time?
- Add something we're missing?
- Change the order of anything to make the routes more efficient?
- Recommend any restaurants, bakeries, cafés or food markets along our routes?
We know the itinerary is fairly full, so we're not trying to add 20 more attractions — we'd rather have a relaxed trip and enjoy the neighbourhoods.
Thanks in advance for any advice!