Paris: how many days you need and the best month to go

When to go, and what each month costs you

Paris does not have a bad season so much as a set of trade-offs. The useful question is not when is the weather best but what am I willing to queue for.

1. JanuaryJan
2. FebruaryFeb
3. March: Worth it, butMar
4. April: Worth it, butApr
5. May: Go nowMay
6. June: Go nowJun
7. July: Think twiceJul
8. August: Think twiceAug
9. September: Go nowSep
10. October: Go nowOct
11. November: Worth it, butNov
12. December: Worth it, butDec

• Go now
• Worth it, but
• Think twice

• May and June

  Go now

  The best balance of the year

  Long days, gardens at their best, and the city still working normally. Late June starts to fill up, but the terraces are open and you get light until late in the evening.

• September and October

  Go now

  Quieter, and the city is back at work

  The summer crowds are gone, everything that closed in August has reopened, and the light is good. October brings more rain but the queues drop noticeably.

• March, April, November

  Worth it, but

  Cheap and empty, with a weather gamble

  Fewer people and better prices, but you are betting on the sky. These work well if your plan can move indoor days around — which is precisely what an itinerary that reorders itself is for.

• July and August

  Think twice

  Peak crowds, and half the city is away

  The heat is manageable but the queues are not, and a genuine Parisian tradition is closing for August: independent restaurants, small shops and neighbourhood bakeries shut for weeks. Museums stay open; the places locals actually go often do not.

• December

  Worth it, but

  Short days, good atmosphere

  Daylight is short enough to cut your sightseeing in half, but the city looks its best and the museums are calm. A good choice if the trip is about food and indoors rather than walking.

How many days Paris needs

Three days covers the obvious Paris and will feel rushed. Five is where the city stops being a list of monuments and starts being a place you walked around — which is the actual reason to come.

The constraint is rarely distance. It is that the major sites now run on timed entry, and a day built without checking those slots first will collapse around a single 14:00 ticket you cannot move.

How the city is arranged

The arrondissements spiral out from the centre, which sounds neat and is genuinely useful: low numbers are central, and neighbouring numbers are usually walkable from each other. Plan by number and you will rarely cross the city twice.

• 1st to 4th — the historic core, the islands, the Marais. Dense, walkable, and where most first trips spend day one.
• 5th and 6th — the Latin Quarter and Saint-Germain, on the left bank. Easy to combine with the core.
• 7th and 8th — the monumental Paris: the tower, the big avenues, several of the museums with timed entry.
• 18th to 20th — Montmartre, Belleville and the east. Further out, better value, and worth a day rather than a detour.

Where to stay, and the arrondissement that saves you half an hour a day

In Paris you pick the neighbourhood for what you want to do at night, because during the day you walk or take the metro to almost everything. The network is dense enough that almost no point in the city is far from a station, which changes the criterion entirely: what the street is like when you step out of the hotel at ten in the evening.

The classic mistake is booking in the monumental districts because they sound good. The 7th and the 8th are beautiful by day and dead after eight, with the most expensive dinner in the city and not a bakery open on the way back.

Compare these areas against your priorities

Airport to centre: three doors, three prices

Paris has two airports and one that pretends to be one. Beauvais is not in Paris: search engines list it as if it were, and it is some eighty kilometres out, with a coach of over an hour that only connects to Porte Maillot. If the ticket is a few euros cheaper and costs you two hours each way, it was not cheaper.

From Charles de Gaulle, the RER B reaches the centre in a little over half an hour and is the fastest option, but it is a commuter train with narrow gates: with two large suitcases at rush hour it is unpleasant. The Roissybus runs to Opéra with no changes and is the comfortable choice when you have luggage.

• From Orly — metro line 14 now runs directly into the centre, which is the simplest option. The Orlyval connecting to the RER B still exists and costs more for the same result.
• Always validate your ticket and keep it until you exit: on the RER you need it to pass the gates at your destination, and there are inspections.
• Most metro lines have no air conditioning. In July and August the platforms are genuinely uncomfortable, and it is one reason August goes badly here.
• Many stations have no lift. If you travel with a large case or a pushchair, checking your station's accessibility before booking saves a forty-step staircase every day.

Day trips, and what time to leave

Almost everything around Paris is a return day trip from a central station. What separates a good day trip from a bad one here is not distance: it is what time you arrive, because everything on this list fills up mid-morning and does not empty out until closing.

• Versailles — the obvious trip and the one that punishes a lie-in. Under an hour on the RER C, and the difference between arriving at opening and arriving at eleven is measured in hours of queue. The gardens are half the visit and most people run out of time for them.
• Giverny — Monet's house and pond, to the northwest. It closes in winter, so it is a spring-to-autumn trip and nothing else.
• Chartres — the cathedral with the stained glass, just over an hour away. It is a half day and almost nobody does it, which you feel the moment you arrive.
• Reims — the champagne capital, about forty-five minutes by high-speed train. Cellar visits book ahead, and that is the part people leave to the last minute.
• Fontainebleau — the palace Versailles overshadowed. Just as impressive, with a fraction of the crowd, and a forest next door.

Eating in Paris without falling into the trap

Paris has rigid mealtimes and that is the detail that breaks most plans. Kitchens close: lunch runs from around half twelve to two, dinner from half seven. Turning up hungry at five in the afternoon means ending up in the only place on the street serving all day, which is almost always the worst one.

The rule that works best is to avoid any restaurant with the menu translated into four languages and photographs of the dishes on the door, especially in sight of a monument. Two streets in, the same dish costs noticeably less and is better made.

• The lunchtime formule is the best value of the day: starter and main, or main and dessert, for well under à la carte prices at the very same places.
• Coffee at the bar and coffee at a table are not the same price. It is legal and it is on the menu: sitting on the terrace has a cost, and it is not a scam.
• Boulangerie and pâtisserie are not the same shop. The first makes bread and viennoiserie; the second, pastry. Many close one weekday, and not always the same one.
• Covered markets and market streets are the cheapest and best food in the city, and they run in the morning. Almost none open on Mondays.

Where to eat in Paris, and what to order

None of these is the best of its kind in Paris, and that is not the criterion. They are the ones still standing in five years, that you can walk into without booking, and that give you an honest version of the thing you came for. The rule that saves the most meals is two streets inward: the same dish costs noticeably less and is better made once no monument is in sight.

• Bouillon Chartier

  Institution

  A proper French sit-down meal, cheap and unbooked

  A bouillon is a nineteenth-century format — fast, cheap, working-class food served in an enormous room — and this one has run since 1896. Order the leeks vinaigrette and the plat du jour. The queue is part of it and it moves; the waiters write on the paper tablecloth and are brisk rather than rude.

  Check it on Wikidata

• Marché des Enfants-Rouges

  Market

  Lunch eaten standing up, in the Marais

  The oldest covered market in Paris, from the 1620s, and now as much a set of food stalls as a market. Moroccan, Japanese, Italian, all under one roof with shared tables. It costs a fraction of a restaurant and takes twenty minutes. Closed Mondays, like nearly every Paris market.

  Check it on Wikidata

• Marché d'Aligre

  Market

  The market Parisians actually shop at

  Half open-air stalls, half covered hall, in the 12th and well off the tourist route. This is where you see the difference between a market that feeds a neighbourhood and one that photographs well. Mornings only, and not on Mondays.

  Check it on Wikidata

• Rue Mouffetard

  Where to look

  A street to graze along as you walk

  A market street in the 5th: bakeries, a cheesemonger, a fishmonger, cafés with the day on a board. Better for assembling a picnic than for sitting down — the restaurants at the bottom of the hill are the touristy end.

  Check it on Wikidata

• Berthillon

  Institution

  The dessert worth crossing the river for

  On Île Saint-Louis, and the reference for ice cream in the city since 1954. The fruit sorbets are the point, not the creams. The shop itself closes for holidays in high summer, which is a very Parisian joke, but half the island sells it.

  Check it on Wikidata

Things that change the trip

1. 1Book timed entry before you build the days, not after. The slot decides the day; everything else moves around it.
2. 2Many museums close one day a week, and it is not the same day everywhere. Two closed on the same weekday is a common way to lose an afternoon.
3. 3The centre is far more walkable than it looks on a métro map. Crossing three arrondissements on foot is often faster than two changes underground.
4. 4Sunday changes the city: many shops shut, but the Marais is a notable exception and museums are usually open.
5. 5If you go in August, plan around independent closures rather than assuming your list will be open.