10 Tips for your Next Trip to Paris

Planning a 1 week trip to any major European city can be very overwhelming. There are so many things to do, see, and eat, it’s so hard to decide what to include or not include. Paris can be especially difficult. If you go on any travel website, you will find lists of about a million things you MUST do or see in Paris. Not to mention the restaurants! There are SO many world class places to eat, how do you decide on just a handful (and not break the bank either)? Here are 1o tips we learned from planning our recent week long trip to France.

Plan, plan, plan. When traveling to Paris at peak vacation time, planning is essential. We were able to pre-buy online tickets to Versailles and to the Eiffel Tower, which cut down on our wait times in line. We also realized that most upscale restaurants are closed Sunday and Monday. By researching which restaurants we wanted to try in advance and the days which they were open, we were able to make a few reservations at some of the key places. It also helps to look at a map while planing to get an idea of where all of the places you want to see are located and plan your day accordingly.
Unless you have 2-3 weeks in Paris, you will not be able to see everything the city has to offer. There are museums and monuments everywhere you turn and almost everything will have a line. We went through the key sites to visit and decided to choose 3-4 that we really wanted to see and made a plan to include those no matter what. Choose what is most important to you. We opted for the Eiffel Tower, Versailles, Notre Dame, and the Sacre Coeur. Secondly, it is key to go to monuments early in the morning or late at night if you want to avoid the crowds. The Eiffel Tower is open until midnight in the summer, so we planned a fun date night with a leisurely dinner followed by riding up the Eiffel Tower. We got a great view of the city lit up and got to see the Eiffel Tower sparkling up close.
Sacre Coeur

View from the top of the Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower Sparkling

View from the top

Eiffel Tower by Night

Notre Dame

Rose Window

Hall of Mirrors at Versailles

Versailles Gardens
There are many other places in Paris to get a great view besides the monuments that are free AND don’t have a long line. One of my favorite spots is the rooftop of the Galeries Lafayette. You get a spectacular view of the Opera House, the Eiffel Tower, and the Sacre Coeur and it’s 100% free. You can also get a pretty great view of the city in Montmartre.
View from Galeries Lafayette

Galeries Lafayette

View of Sacre Coeur from Galeries Lafayette
Save up to enjoy one meal at a 3 star Michelin restaurant. Paris is home to ten 3 star Michelin restaurants. These restaurants can carry a hefty price tag but we learned a little trick. Go for lunch! We had been dying to try Arpege after watching Alain Paissard on Netflix’s special Chef’s Table, but felt a $400 per person dinner was a little out of our price range. For lunch, you can get a 12 course meal for $150. It was SO worth it, an experience neither of us will ever forget. Several of these restaurants offer online reservations, so you can prebook months in advance. A suggestion – allot the entire afternoon for this type of dining experience. We saw many people rushing through their meal, or skipping courses altogether because they had made plans for the afternoon. We arrived at 1:30 and left around 4:30 and took our time, it was an amazing afternoon and a great break from all of the walking we had been doing.
Bites of pureed vegetables

The famous Arpege egg

Tomato Tart

Roasted pork

Vegetable Fritter with Smoked Tomato Puree

Profiterole stuffed with ice cream

Ile Flottante
Leave time for exploring. Paris is a beautiful city! If you spend all of your time in lines, you will miss out on some of the best parts of the city. We set aside one morning where we didn’t really plan anything specific. We also happened to walk over to the Opera Garnier as it was opening and hopped in the almost nonexistent line for a self-guided tour (tip – if you cannot make it to Versailles, definitely check out the Opera Garnier! The opulent styles are very similar). Afterwards, we decided to check out E. Dehlerrin, a kitchen supply store that has been visited by many famous chefs. Then we simply walked the streets, popping into small stores, grabbing a coffee at a cafe, and just enjoying not having a plan. We found a local shop that sells all types of organic honey products that was sampling everything they had!
Streets of Montmartre

Le Metro

Exploring the streets of Paris

Exploring the streets of Paris

Exploring the streets of Paris

Shopping at E Dehlerrin

Opera Garnier
Make good use of the city’s great public transportation system. We purchased a 5 day Paris Visite Pass which allowed us unlimited rides on the RER and the subway in zones 1-5 (includes the airport and Versailles). It was about 65 euro each, but SO worth it. The subway system in Paris is very efficient and organized, a great way to get around.
Look at all your options for finding a place to stay. We automatically assumed that Air BnB would be the best deal for us, as we used it almost exclusively when we traveled to Spain/Portugal last year, snagging quaint studio apartments for as low as 35 Euro in Lisbon (!!!). Surprisingly, we found that the Air BnB prices were significantly higher in Paris. We ended up looking at hotels and found a chain of hotels in Paris called Astotel. They have multiple locations throughout the city and were very reasonably priced (90-140 Euros/night) and included breakfast, free minibar with nonalcoholic drinks, and a self-serve snack bar/espresso machine in the lobby until 2 AM! The great part about Paris is that as long as you’re close to a subway station, you’re only about 20 minutes away from any location.
Enjoy l’aperitif hour! Around 5-8 PM, you will notice that every cafe in Paris starts to get crowded. In France, this is the hour for l’aperitif. A time to sit and and enjoy a cocktail and a snack before dinner. It’s a great way to relax and unwind after a long day of exploring and walking and set the tone for a leisurely evening. And the good news is that if you’re not a big drinker, every cafe serves coffee as well. On several days, we both needed a little caffeine jolt before going out for the evening, and this was the perfect time for it.
For a bustling nightlife, head to the Latin Quarter. Packed with jazz bars and night clubs, there is a little something for everyone. We opted for a jazz show at the Caveau de la Huchette for 13 euro/person. It was so fun to watch couples dance to the live music. And when you get out from any of these clubs, there will be myriad of eating options to satisfy any late night food cravings. Some late night kabobs are always a good idea.
The Latin Quarter by Night

Caveau de la Huchette
I hesitated to give any restaurant recommendations, as I don’t think either of us can be considered experts on the Parisian food scene. I highly recommend checking out some Instagram pages from locals (@lefrenchfood @lostncheeseland @sliceofparis @infatuation_paris) to get ideas of great places to eat. That being said, it would be hard to talk about our trip without mentioning some of the amazing eateries we visited. Du Pain et Des Idees was a small, unassuming boulangerie, but their breads were out of this world, especially the pistachio escargot, highly recommend it. We tried a small but upscale place called Papillon and had a spectacular 6 course dinner for 65 euro each. It was quiet and tucked away, no one spoke English and we were surrounded by locals rather than tourists. We loved it. L’Avant Comptoir, by contrast, is well-known by tourists, but for good reason. It was a unique dining experience, ordering modern tapas from the signs hanging from the ceiling. We tried a duck confit “hot dog”, braised pork belly, savory waffles, etc. Berthillon for ice cream – you can’t go wrong there. Their wild strawberry sorbet is spectacular. Arpege was perfection, quite simply.
Du Pain et Des Idées

L’escargot au Pistache from Du Pain et des Idées

Dinner at Papillon

Braised veal dish at Papillon

Menu hanging from the ceiling at L’Avant Comptoir

Duck Confit “Hot Dog”

Fried Chipirones with Lime

Ice cream from Berthillon