Smart Self-Managed Tours

City guide · France

Paris

A photograph of Paris
Photograph · Yann Caradec from Paris, France · CC BY-SA 2.0

Paris is 105.4 km² holding 2,047,602 people, wrapped in twenty arrondissements that spiral outward from the Louvre. Almost everything a visitor comes for is inside that spiral, and most of it is walkable. The Seine cuts the city in two and everything is described in relation to it. The Right Bank to the north holds the commerce and the great institutions; the Left Bank to the south holds the universities and the bookshops. Between them the Île de la Cité and the Île Saint-Louis are where the city started.

Practical information
Language spoken
French
English is understood in tourist districts and rarely outside them
Dialling code
+33 1
Paris and the Île-de-France; drop the leading 0 of 01 when calling from abroad
Currency
Euro (€, EUR)
Cards accepted almost everywhere; markets prefer cash
Emergency number
112
One number across the country; 15 reaches an ambulance directly
Plug type
Type C and E · 230 V
European two-pin; type E adds an earth pin in the socket
Tap water
Safe to drink
Held to the European drinking water directive

Planning a visit

Suggested stay
4–5 days
Getting around
Métro and on foot
  1. January: seasonal closure recorded
  2. February: seasonal closure recorded
  3. March: seasonal closure recorded
  4. April: recorded as a best month to visit
  5. May: recorded as a best month to visit
  6. June: recorded as a best month to visit
  7. July: no seasonality data recorded
  8. August: no seasonality data recorded — this month
  9. September: recorded as a best month to visit
  10. October: recorded as a best month to visit
  11. November: seasonal closure recorded
  12. December: seasonal closure recorded

Top things to see

Ranked by importance — sitelinks, pageviews and heritage status, not editor preference.

Filter the list

100 places match
Clear all filters

Category

Historic monuments 1684 Museums 6 Places of worship 479 Nature sites 0 Viewpoints 0 Food and drink 1 Markets and shopping 1 Entertainment 0 Nightlife 0 Family attractions 0 Art and culture 0 Activities 0

Typical visit duration

Up to 1 hour 2171 1 to 2 hours 145 Half a day or more 8

Interests

History 2171 Art 2357 Museums 1884 Nature 724 Sea and beach 697 Viewpoints 27
  1. Notre-Dame de Paris
    01 1 hour

    Notre-Dame de Paris

    Notre-Dame is the cathedral of Paris and it burned down five years before it reopened.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  2. Arc de Triomphe
    02 1 hour

    Arc de Triomphe

    The Arc de Triomphe is Napoleon's victory monument and it took thirty years, by which time he was dead.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 16e Arrondissement
  3. Sacré-Cœur
    03 45 min

    Sacré-Cœur

    Sacré-Cœur was built as an apology. After France lost the war of 1870, Bishop Felix Fournier proposed a church as an act of national penitence, reading the defeat as divine punishment for the country's moral decline since the Revolution.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 18e Arrondissement
  4. Sainte Chapelle
    04 45 min

    Sainte Chapelle

    Sainte-Chapelle is a reliquary the size of a building, and the relic cost more than three times what the building did.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  5. avenue des Champs-Élysées
    05 45 min

    avenue des Champs-Élysées

    The Champs-Élysées is 1.91 km long, 70 m wide, and it is a garden path that became a shopping street.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  6. Bastille
    06 20 min

    Bastille

    The Bastille is a square where a prison used to be, and the prison held seven people on the day it was stormed.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  7. Catacombs of Paris
    07 1 hour

    Catacombs of Paris

    The Catacombs of Paris hold roughly six million people in a former limestone quarry, moved there because the city's cemeteries had run out of room.

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 14e Arrondissement
  8. Montparnasse Tower
    08 1 hour

    Montparnasse Tower

    Montparnasse Tower is a 210 m office block finished in 1973, and the reaction to it is the reason Paris has not built another skyscraper in its centre since.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 15e Arrondissement
  9. Champ de Mars
    09 45 min

    Champ de Mars

    The Champ de Mars is a parade ground that became a lawn, and the Eiffel Tower stands at one end of it.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  10. Panthéon
    10 1 hour

    Panthéon

    The Panthéon was built as a church and finished just in time to stop being one.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 5e Arrondissement
  11. place de la Concorde
    11 20 min

    place de la Concorde

    The Place de la Concorde is a 7.6-hectare traffic island that was once the busiest execution ground in Europe. It is the largest public square in Paris.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  12. Grand Mosque of Paris
    12 45 min

    Grand Mosque of Paris

    The Grand Mosque of Paris opened in 1926 as France's thanks to its Muslim soldiers, and it remains the city's central mosque a century later.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 5e Arrondissement
  13. Luxembourg Palace
    13 20 min

    Luxembourg Palace

    The Luxembourg Palace is the French Senate, and it was built because a widowed queen was homesick for Florence.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 6e Arrondissement
  14. Jardin du Luxembourg
    14 1 hour

    Jardin du Luxembourg

    The Jardin du Luxembourg is a 23-hectare formal garden on the Left Bank, laid out from 1612 for a queen who wanted a Florentine garden in Paris and built by the French Senate, which still owns the palace at its…

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 6e Arrondissement
  15. Louvre Pyramid
    15 20 min

    Louvre Pyramid

    The Louvre Pyramid is the glass entrance structure built in the museum's main courtyard in the 1980s, and it is a part of the Louvre — its main entrance and one of the more argued-over additions to central Paris …

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  16. Palais-Royal
    16 45 min

    Palais-Royal

    The Palais-Royal was a cardinal's house that became Europe's first shopping centre and then the place the Revolution started.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  17. University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne
    17 1 hour

    University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne

    Behind the gate at Place de la Sorbonne sits a university with a name older than most nations: Robert de Sorbon founded a theology college here in 1257 under the patronage of Louis IX, and the word "Sorbonne" has meant…

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 5e Arrondissement
  18. La Madeleine
    18 30 min

    La Madeleine

    La Madeleine is a Greek temple in the middle of Paris, and it took seventy-nine years and several changes of mind to finish.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  19. place Vendôme
    19 20 min

    place Vendôme

    Place Vendôme is an octagon of uniform stone façades built as a single architectural composition, not a collection of separate buildings that happened to end up on the same square.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  20. Pont Neuf
    20 20 min

    Pont Neuf

    The Pont Neuf is the New Bridge and it is the oldest standing bridge in Paris, which has been the joke about it for four hundred years.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  21. Musée de la Vie romantique
    21 1 hour

    Musée de la Vie romantique

    The Musée de la Vie romantique occupies the house and studio of the painter Ary Scheffer, in a district that was the address of Romantic-era Paris rather than a stop added to it later.

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 9e Arrondissement
  22. Hôtel de Ville
    22 1 hour

    Hôtel de Ville

    The Hôtel de Ville is Paris's city hall, seat of the mayor and the city council, on the square that carries its name.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  23. Chapelle expiatoire
    23 30 min

    Chapelle expiatoire

    The Chapelle expiatoire is a neoclassical funerary chapel built between 1815 and 1826 on the site of the former Madeleine cemetery, where the guillotined bodies of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were buried in unmarked graves covered with quicklime in…

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  24. arc de triomphe du Carrousel
    24 15 min

    arc de triomphe du Carrousel

    The Arc de triomphe du Carrousel stands in the Cour Napoleon, between the Louvre's wings and I. M.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  25. Chaillot Palace
    25 30 min

    Chaillot Palace

    The Palais de Chaillot is the curved, colonnaded building on the hill of Trocadero facing the Eiffel Tower across the Seine, built for the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques on the site of the demolished 1878 Palais du…

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 16e Arrondissement
  26. Hôtel Matignon
    26 1 hour

    Hôtel Matignon

    The Hotel Matignon is the official residence and working office of the French Prime Minister, on the Rue de Varenne in the 7th arrondissement, and it is not open to the public in any ordinary sense — this is a…

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  27. Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris
    27 15 min

    Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris

    The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a flat paving stone beneath the Arc de Triomphe, at the centre of Place Charles de Gaulle, marking the grave of an unidentified French soldier from the First World War.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  28. place de la République
    28 20 min

    place de la République

    Place de la Republique is a large public square straddling the 3rd, 10th and 11th arrondissements, at a junction where several of Paris's grand boulevards meet, and it functions today primarily as a civic gathering space rather than a sightseeing…

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 11e Arrondissement
  29. École Militaire
    29 15 min

    École Militaire

    The Ecole Militaire is an operating French military academy, not a museum, and it is not open to the public.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  30. Luxor Obelisk
    30 10 min

    Luxor Obelisk

    The Luxor Obelisk stands at the centre of Place de la Concorde, a 3,300-year-old pink granite obelisk that once stood at the entrance to Luxor Temple in Egypt, one of a matching pair carved in the reign of Ramesses II.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  31. galerie Vivienne
    31 20 min

    galerie Vivienne

    Galerie Vivienne is a covered shopping passage, one of the best-preserved of the passages couverts that dotted central Paris in the early 19th century before department stores and Haussmann's boulevards displaced most of them.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 2e Arrondissement
  32. Jardin des serres d'Auteuil
    32 1 hour

    Jardin des serres d'Auteuil

    The Jardin des serres d'Auteuil is a municipal botanical garden built around a set of glasshouses, on the western edge of Paris beside the Bois de Boulogne.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 16e Arrondissement
  33. Arènes de Lutèce
    33 30 min

    Arènes de Lutèce

    Arenes de Lutece is the surviving Roman amphitheatre of Lutetia, built in the 1st century AD on the slope of what is now the 5th arrondissement, and it once seated an estimated 15,000 people for gladiator contests and theatre.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 5e Arrondissement
  34. Battle of Paris
    34 10 min

    Battle of Paris

    This point marks ground fought over during the Battle of Paris of 30-31 March 1814, the engagement that ended the War of the Sixth Coalition on French soil and forced Napoleon's abdication weeks later.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 18e Arrondissement
  35. Saint-Jacques Tower
    35 15 min

    Saint-Jacques Tower

    The Tour Saint-Jacques is the last surviving fragment of the church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, a late-Gothic parish church built between 1509 and 1523 for the guild of Paris butchers, whose market gave the church its name.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  36. July Column
    36 1 hour

    July Column

    The Colonne de Juillet stands at the centre of Place de la Bastille and commemorates the July Revolution of 1830 — the Trois Glorieuses, three days of fighting on 27-29 July that drove King Charles X from the throne.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 11e Arrondissement
  37. Palais de Justice
    37 20 min

    Palais de Justice

    The Palais de Justice is the historic seat of the French judiciary on the Ile de la Cite, built on the site of the medieval Palais de la Cite, the residence of the Capetian kings from the 10th century until…

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  38. Pont Mirabeau
    38 15 min

    Pont Mirabeau

    Pont Mirabeau carries a road and pedestrian walkways across the Seine between the 15th and 16th arrondissements, built between 1893 and 1897 under the chief engineer Paul Rabel using a steel arch design that was, at the time, one of…

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 15e Arrondissement
  39. Porte Saint-Denis
    39 10 min

    Porte Saint-Denis

    Porte Saint-Denis is a triumphal arch built in 1672 on the orders of the city of Paris to honour Louis XIV's military victories on the Rhine, in particular the crossing of the Rhine earlier that year during the Franco-Dutch War.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 10e Arrondissement
  40. Maison de Balzac
    40 45 min

    Maison de Balzac

    Maison de Balzac is the house where the novelist Honore de Balzac lived from 1840 to 1847, on rue Raynouard in what was then the village of Passy and is now the 16th arrondissement of Paris.

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 16e Arrondissement
  41. Colonne Vendôme
    41 15 min

    Colonne Vendôme

    The Colonne Vendome stands at the centre of Place Vendome in the 1st arrondissement, raised between 1806 and 1810 on Napoleon's order to commemorate the victory at Austerlitz.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  42. parc Montsouris
    42 1 hour

    parc Montsouris

    Parc Montsouris is a 15.5-hectare public park in the 14th arrondissement, opened in 1878 as part of Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann's programme of large landscaped parks for Paris.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 14e Arrondissement
  43. pont au Change
    43 10 min

    pont au Change

    Pont au Change carries rue de Rivoli's continuation across the northern arm of the Seine, linking the Ile de la Cite -- at the Conciergerie and the Palais de Justice -- to the Right Bank at Place du Chatelet.

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  44. Hôtel de Crillon
    44 30 min

    Hôtel de Crillon

    Hotel de Crillon opened as a hotel in 1909, but the building itself is a 1758 royal commission: Louis XV had Ange-Jacques Gabriel build two identical stone palaces flanking the Rue Royale on the new Place de la Concorde, and…

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  45. Académie de la Grande Chaumière
    45 45 min

    Académie de la Grande Chaumière

    Academie de la Grande Chaumiere is an art school founded in 1904 by the Catalan painter Claudio Castelucho on the street of the same name in Montparnasse, near the older Academie Colarossi, and it became a defining institution of the…

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 6e Arrondissement
  46. Porte Saint-Martin
    46 15 min

    Porte Saint-Martin

    Porte Saint-Martin is a triumphal arch built in 1674 at the order of Louis XIV to celebrate his military victories on the Rhine and in Franche-Comte, standing at what was then a gate in the walls of Paris built under…

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 10e Arrondissement
  47. Saint-Roch
    47 25 min

    Saint-Roch

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  49. Dalí Paris
    49 1 hour

    Dalí Paris

    • Must see
    • Museum
    • Paris 18e Arrondissement
  52. Hôtel de Sens
    52 45 min

    Hôtel de Sens

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  53. Hôtel de Soubise
    53 45 min

    Hôtel de Soubise

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 3e Arrondissement
  54. Hôtel Lambert
    54 45 min

    Hôtel Lambert

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  55. Le Lido
    55 45 min

    Le Lido

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  59. Communards' Wall
    59 45 min

    Communards' Wall

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 20e Arrondissement
  61. Medici Fountain
    61 45 min

    Medici Fountain

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 6e Arrondissement
  62. rue des Rosiers
    62 45 min

    rue des Rosiers

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  63. Au Lapin Agile
    63 45 min

    Au Lapin Agile

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 18e Arrondissement
  66. Villa La Roche
    66 45 min

    Villa La Roche

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 16e Arrondissement
  71. Thermes de Cluny
    71 45 min

    Thermes de Cluny

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 5e Arrondissement
  72. Hôtel Beauharnais
    72 45 min

    Hôtel Beauharnais

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  73. Hôtel Biron
    73 45 min

    Hôtel Biron

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  74. Hôtel de Lauzun
    74 45 min

    Hôtel de Lauzun

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  75. jardin Atlantique
    75 45 min

    jardin Atlantique

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 15e Arrondissement
  76. Oscar Wilde's tomb
    76 45 min

    Oscar Wilde's tomb

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 20e Arrondissement
  77. Port-Royal Abbey
    77 45 min

    Port-Royal Abbey

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 14e Arrondissement
  79. Saint-Merri
    79 30 min

    Saint-Merri

    • Must see
    • Place of worship
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  81. fontaine du Fellah
    81 45 min

    fontaine du Fellah

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  82. Hôtel d'Aumont
    82 45 min

    Hôtel d'Aumont

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 4e Arrondissement
  84. Hôtel de Marigny
    84 45 min

    Hôtel de Marigny

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 8e Arrondissement
  87. Medicis column
    87 45 min

    Medicis column

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  88. Villa Jeanneret
    88 45 min

    Villa Jeanneret

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 16e Arrondissement
  90. Saint-Séverin
    90 30 min

    Saint-Séverin

    • Must see
    • Place of worship
    • Paris 5e Arrondissement
  92. fontaine Molière
    92 45 min

    fontaine Molière

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 1er Arrondissement
  94. Hotel Gaillard
    94 45 min

    Hotel Gaillard

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 17e Arrondissement
  95. Maison Planeix
    95 45 min

    Maison Planeix

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 13e Arrondissement
  97. Tomb of Napoleon
    97 45 min

    Tomb of Napoleon

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement
  98. Hôtel de Lassay
    98 45 min

    Hôtel de Lassay

    • Must see
    • Historic monument
    • Paris 7e Arrondissement

Source: OpenStreetMap contributors, Wikidata ·

Where to base yourself

District boundaries come from OSM administrative relations, so a district page holds exactly the places inside it — plus, for the islands and the coast, the nearest district by proximity.

How the city is laid out

The arrondissements spiral clockwise from the centre: the 1st sits at the Louvre and the Île de la Cité, and the numbers wind outward to the 20th. Learning that shape is the single most useful thing a first-time visitor can do, because every address in the city carries its arrondissement and the number tells you roughly where you are.

The Right Bank — north of the Seine — is the 1st through 4th at the centre, then the grand avenues of the 8th and 16th to the west and Montmartre in the 18th to the north. The Louvre, the Champs-Élysées, the Opéra and Sacré-Cœur are all Right Bank.

The Left Bank — south — is the 5th, 6th and 7th: the Latin Quarter, Saint-Germain, the Panthéon, the Musée d'Orsay and the Eiffel Tower. It is the older-feeling half and the one with the bookshops.

The Périphérique, completed in 1973, rings the whole of it. Inside is Paris; outside is the metropolitan area of 13,320,752 people across 18,940.7 km², which is a different thing.

Checked 2026-08-23

Getting around

The Métro, and then walking. Paris is small enough that the two together cover everything.

The Métro opened on 19 July 1900 during the World's Fair and now runs 16 lines — numbered 1 to 14 plus 3bis and 7bis — across 321 stations, 61 of which are interchanges. Stations sit 548 m apart on average, which is why a Métro journey of two stops is usually a walk. It carries 1.523 billion passengers a year, 4.17 million a day.

The RER extends further out into the suburbs and is what takes you to the airports and to Versailles. Châtelet–Les Halles, where five Métro lines meet three RER lines, is the largest interchange and the one to avoid at rush hour.

Single tickets and multi-use passes are both sold, and the Navigo Easy card is the contactless option.

Checked 2026-08-23

Common questions

How many days does Paris need?

Four to five. Three days covers the central monuments — the Louvre, Notre-Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-Élysées — at a pace that is not punishing. A fourth adds a proper museum day, and a fifth adds Montmartre or a day out at Versailles.

How do the arrondissements work?

They spiral clockwise from the centre. The 1st is at the Louvre and the Île de la Cité and the numbers wind outward to the 20th. Every Paris address carries its arrondissement, so the number tells you roughly where something is.

What is the difference between the Right Bank and the Left Bank?

The Seine. The Right Bank to the north holds the commerce and the great institutions — the Louvre, the Champs-Élysées, the Opéra, Montmartre. The Left Bank to the south holds the universities, the Latin Quarter, the Panthéon, the Musée d'Orsay and the Eiffel Tower.

Is the Métro the best way around?

For anything over a kilometre, yes. It opened on 19 July 1900 and runs 16 lines across 321 stations, with stations 548 m apart on average — which means a two-stop journey is usually faster on foot.

When is the best time to come?

April to June and September to October. August is when Parisians leave and tourists arrive, which is the worst of both — shuttered restaurants and full museums.

How big is Paris really?

The city proper is 105.4 km² with 2,047,602 people, ringed by the Périphérique completed in 1973. The metropolitan area outside it holds 13,320,752 people across 18,940.7 km².

Turn this list into a plan

Set your days, your pace and the hours you actually want to be out. The planner works around closing days and travel time, and leaves room to eat.

Plan Paris