Interesting Places to Go in Paris: The Complete Visitor’s Guide

Paris is the most visited city on earth — and justifiably so. No other city concentrates so much of what humans have produced at their best (art, architecture, food, fashion, intellectual life) into so navigable an area. But the Paris most tourists experience — the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-Élysées — represents only the most visible layer of a city that rewards the curious visitor who explores beyond the obvious.

The Essential Paris

The Louvre is the world’s largest and most visited art museum — allow a full day and accept that you will see a fraction of it. Book tickets in advance; the queue for walk-up entry can be two hours. The Musée d’Orsay (Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection, in a converted railway station) and the Centre Pompidou (modern and contemporary art, with extraordinary city views from the rooftop) complete a triumvirate of world-class art in a single city.

The Eiffel Tower is worth visiting at least once — ideally at dusk, when the golden light turns to the illuminated nighttime sparkle. Book the summit timed entry well in advance. Walk the Champs-Élysées once for the sense of scale, but eat elsewhere — the restaurants along it are almost universally overpriced and mediocre.

Beyond the Tourist Trail

Le Marais — the medieval quarter on the Right Bank — is Paris at its most liveable: independent galleries, the Place des Vosges (Paris’s most beautiful square), excellent falafel on Rue des Rosiers, and the kind of street-level charm that the more touristed areas lack. Canal Saint-Martin, with its iron footbridges and café terraces, is where Parisians go on weekends. Montmartre above the Sacré-Coeur basilica, away from the tourist shops, has winding streets and village atmosphere unlike anywhere else in the city. Belleville and Oberkampf represent the younger, more multicultural Paris that most visitors never see.

Eating in Paris

The Paris food scene has diversified significantly in the last decade — the city now has outstanding Japanese, Vietnamese, Lebanese, and West African restaurants alongside its canonical French bistros and brasseries. The classic bistro experience (steak frites, onion soup, crème brûlée, carafe of Côtes du Rhône) is still the most satisfying single meal Paris offers, but finding the right bistro — non-touristic, with handwritten menus, genuine locals, and straightforward cooking — requires walking away from the main tourist areas.