Paris: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
All of Paris begins on one island in the middle of the river. A Gaulish tribe called the Parisii sat on it, the Romans took it, and the kings built the palace and the church on it — each on the ruins of the last. Every distance in France is still measured from this island. Two hours, and few steps.
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A short history of Paris
The Parisii tribe lived on the islands of the Seine, and the Romans founded Lutetia here. In the early 6th century King Clovis made it his capital. In 1163 construction of Notre-Dame Cathedral began. On 14 July 1789 the Bastille fell and the French Revolution got under way. Between 1853 and 1870 Baron Haussmann demolished much of the medieval city and built the wide boulevards, and in 1889 the Eiffel Tower was erected for the world exhibition. In August 1944 the city was liberated from German occupation. In 2019 fire broke out in the roof of Notre-Dame, and in 2024 the city hosted the Olympic Games for the third time.
The ten best sights in Paris
1Eiffel TowerBook online weeks ahead, or climb the stairs for €11
2LouvreClosed Tuesdays. Enter from the Carrousel, not the pyramid
3Musée d’OrsayA railway station. The impressionists are on the top floor
4Centre PompidouClosing for five years of works — check before you go
5Musée de l’OrangerieTwo oval rooms, eight water lily panels, and nothing else
6Musée RodinThe garden ticket alone is €5, and the garden is the point
7Musée PicassoIn a mansion built by a salt-tax collector
8Musée CarnavaletThe history of Paris itself, and free
9Musée Marmottan MonetThe painting that gave impressionism its name
10Notre-DameReopened in December 2024. Free, and the queue moves
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What is an audio walk?
Tours in Paris →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Paris:
Free walking tours in Paris
Where Paris Began
All of Paris begins on one island in the middle of the river. A Gaulish tribe called the Parisii sat on it, the Romans took it, and the kings built the palace and the church on it — each on the ruins of the last. Every distance in France is still measured from this island. Two hours, and few steps.
- Notre-Dame · The roof frame that burned in April 2019 was called the forest: thirteen hundred oaks felled in the twelfth century, each beam one whole tree. It was rebuilt with thirteen hundred more, cut by hand with medieval axes, and the cathedral reopened in December 2024.
- Sainte-Chapelle · Built in seven years to hold the Crown of Thorns, which Louis the Ninth bought from Constantinople for more than twice what the building cost. There are one thousand one hundred and thirteen stained glass scenes, and two-thirds of the glass is the original thirteenth-century pane.
- Conciergerie · The first royal palace in Paris became the prison of the Revolution: two thousand seven hundred and eighty people were sent from these rooms to the guillotine in eighteen months. Marie Antoinette’s cell is kept, and the medieval hall next door is the largest left in Europe.
- Pont Neuf · The new bridge is the oldest one standing, finished in 1607 — and it was new in one way that mattered: it was the first bridge in Paris built without houses on it, so that for the first time people could stand on a bridge and look at their own river.
- Shakespeare and Company · Since 1951 some thirty thousand people have slept among the shelves — they are called tumbleweeds, and the rent is to read a book a day, help in the shop for a couple of hours, and leave a one-page autobiography behind.
- Panthéon · In 1851 Léon Foucault hung a sixty-seven metre wire from this dome with a twenty-eight kilo bob, and the swing slowly turned — the first direct proof, visible to anyone standing there, that the Earth rotates. The pendulum still hangs.
The City That Was Demolished
Between 1853 and 1870 Baron Haussmann demolished twenty thousand buildings in Paris and built forty thousand new ones. He cut straight boulevards through medieval quarters and fixed by law the height, the roof angle and the facade line — which is why Paris looks uniform. This is the city you know from photographs, and it is only a hundred and fifty years old. Two hours.
- Arc de Triomphe · Twelve avenues meet at it, and Haussmann cut most of them. The roundabout has no lane markings at all, and French insurers settle any accident inside it fifty-fifty by default, whoever was at fault.
- Champs-Élysées · It was marsh and market gardens until 1667, when the king’s gardener cut an avenue through it to extend the view from the Tuileries. The name means the Elysian Fields — the place the Greeks sent the virtuous dead.
- Place de la Concorde · The obelisk was cut at Luxor around 1250 BC and given to France in 1830; it took four years to get it here. It stands on the spot where the guillotine stood, and it was put there precisely so the square would have something to be about other than that.
- Jardin des Tuileries · There was a palace at the end of this garden for three hundred years, and the Commune burned it in 1871. What was left stood as a ruin for eleven years and was then pulled down — which is why the Louvre has an open fourth side.
- Opéra Garnier · The builders hit the water table and could not drain it, so they built a watertight tank under the stage and left the water in — a real lake, which the Paris fire brigade still uses to train divers. Leroux read about it and wrote a novel.
- Galeries Lafayette · The glass dome is from 1912 and was built to make shopping feel like going to the opera — the department store was a new idea and had to be sold as an experience. The roof terrace above it is free, and nobody on the ground floor knows.
The Quarter That Survived
When Haussmann straightened Paris, one quarter was left almost untouched — because it was already too poor to be worth it. The Marais kept its lanes, its seventeenth-century mansions turned into flats, and the Jewish community that has sat in it since the thirteenth century. Two hours, and best on a Sunday — the one quarter in Paris that is open then.
- Place des Vosges · Finished in 1612, it is the oldest planned square in Paris and the model for every square built after it in Europe. Thirty-six identical houses, red brick over stone, and one of them, on the corner, is where Victor Hugo wrote most of Les Misérables.
- Rue des Rosiers · Jews have lived on this street since the thirteenth century, and the quarter is still called the Pletzl — the little place, in Yiddish. The bakeries, the falafel queue and the bookshops are all on two hundred metres of one lane.
- Marché des Enfants Rouges · Trading since 1615, which makes it the oldest covered market in Paris. The name comes from an orphanage that stood beside it, whose children were dressed in red — the colour of charity.
- Musée Picasso · The mansion is called the Hôtel Salé — the salted house — because the man who built it in 1659 collected the salt tax, and Paris never let him forget it. The collection is what Picasso kept for himself, handed over by his heirs instead of death duties.
- Musée Carnavalet · The museum of the city itself, in two mansions joined together, and it is free. Whole rooms were lifted out of demolished buildings and rebuilt inside it — including Marcel Proust’s bedroom, with the cork-lined walls he slept behind.
- Centre Pompidou · Everything that is normally hidden was put on the outside so the floors inside could be empty: blue is air, green is water, yellow is electricity and red is anything that moves people. Paris hated it, and now it is closing for five years of repair.
Getting to Paris and getting around
- Charles de Gaulle · The RER B is 35 minutes to Châtelet, €11.80
- Orly · Line 14 goes straight there now, 25 minutes
- Gare du Nord · The Eurostar to London, and the busiest station in Europe
- Gare de Lyon · Trains south. The restaurant upstairs is from 1901
Museums in Paris
- Louvre · €22, closed Tuesdays. Enter from the Carrousel
- Musée d’Orsay · €16, closed Mondays, and the top floor first
- Musée de l’Orangerie · €12.50, small, and twenty minutes is enough
- Musée Rodin · €5 for the garden alone, and the garden is the point
- Musée Carnavalet · The city’s own museum, free, and Proust’s bedroom in it
- Musée Marmottan Monet · The painting that gave impressionism its name hangs here
- Fondation Louis Vuitton · Twelve glass sails by Gehry, in the Bois de Boulogne
- Les Invalides · Napoleon in six coffins, one inside the other
Cheap eats in Paris
Eight counters where Paris eats standing. A bakery that has not changed its painted ceiling since 1889, a falafel window with a queue down the lane, a cellar where the wine comes out of the barrel into your own bottle, and a dining room from 1896 where the waiter still adds up the bill on the paper tablecloth.
- Du Pain et des Idées · Closed at weekends. Go before eleven
- L’As du Fallafel · €9 in the hand, closed Saturdays
- Bouillon Chartier · No bookings, shared tables, main course under €14
- Le Baron Rouge · Wine from the barrel, standing, and bring your own bottle
- Chez Alain Miam Miam · One man, one griddle, in the covered market. €12
- Breizh Café · Buckwheat galettes and cider in a bowl, as in Brittany
- Berthillon · On the island, closed Monday and Tuesday, and worth it
- Rue Montorgueil · A market street since the Middle Ages. Eat along it
Parks and gardens in Paris
- Jardin du Luxembourg · Free. The chairs by the pond are the good ones
- Parc des Buttes-Chaumont · Free, steep, and almost no tourists
- Père Lachaise · Take the map at the gate. Jim Morrison is section 6
- Coulée verte · Four and a half kilometres on an old viaduct, and free
- Parc Monceau · A fake ruin, a pyramid, and the quietest lawn in the west
- Jardin des Plantes · Free, and the evolution hall inside it is worth the ticket
Holy places in Paris
- Notre-Dame · Free since December 2024, and the queue moves fast
- Sainte-Chapelle · €13. Bright morning or do not bother
- Sacré-Cœur · Free. The dome is €7 and almost always empty
- Panthéon · €13, and Foucault’s pendulum still swings in it
- Saint-Sulpice · Free. A brass meridian line runs across the floor
- Catacombs · Six million people. Book, or three hours in the queue
Live music in Paris
- Philharmonie de Paris · Jean Nouvel, and the cheap seats are behind the orchestra
- Olympia · Two thousand seats, and all of them see the stage
- New Morning · A jazz room since 1981, and the sound is why
- Opéra Garnier · Standing tickets exist and cost €10
- Rex Club · Under a 1932 cinema, and the sound system is famous
- Palais de Tokyo · Open until midnight, closed Tuesdays, and raw concrete
Nightlife in Paris
- Canal Saint-Martin · Everyone sits on the stones with a bottle. Free
- Belleville · The cheapest night out in Paris, and the most mixed
- Bastille · Rue de Lappe, and it does not quieten before two
- Pigalle · The south side is bars now, not what it was
- Butte-aux-Cailles · A village of two streets, and students drink in both
- Café de Flore · €7 for a coffee, and you are paying for the chair
Frequently asked questions about Paris
What is there to see in Paris?
The top sights in Paris are Eiffel Tower, Louvre and Musée d’Orsay. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Paris?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Paris without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Paris?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Paris, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: Where Paris Began.
How do you get to Paris and get around?
The main ways are Charles de Gaulle, Orly and Gare du Nord. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Paris, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Paris that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Paris for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.