The Eiffel Tower & Champ de Mars
Best at golden hour, picnic optional.
Paris in pictures
Paris
Culture, food, and a train that just works
Destinations › Europe › Paris
Paris rewards wandering — grand boulevards, riverside bookstalls, and a café on every corner. It's also the gateway to the rest of Europe by rail.
Fly from Toronto (roughly 7 hours nonstop). Once there, onward European trains are easy — compare rail on Omio.
The Métro and RER are quick and dense; central Paris is wonderfully walkable; and the Seine ties the sights together.
Best at golden hour, picnic optional.
Give it a morning; the gardens are free.
Hilltop views, artists' squares and quiet lanes.
Pont Alexandre III is the city's most beautiful bridge.
Medieval street plan, walkable to almost everything, and the best browsing in the city. The catch is the buildings: narrow lanes, tight pavements, and a lot of walk-up apartments with no lift or a lift the size of a phone box. Great if everyone in your group is on their feet comfortably. Genuinely difficult with big suitcases, a stroller, or a parent who can't do three flights of stairs.
The safe, classic choice. Flat, calm after dark, close to the Luxembourg Gardens and a short walk over the river to the Louvre. Suits older travellers and anyone who wants to step outside and be somewhere pleasant without planning it. It is one of the most expensive parts of central Paris and it is not where you go for a late night.
Beautiful, and a real hill. Not a gentle slope - stairs, steep lanes, and a long climb from the nearest flat ground. If you are travelling with parents or a toddler, do not base yourself up here; visit for a morning using the funicular instead. Lower Montmartre near Abbesses is livelier and less of a climb than the streets behind Sacre-Coeur.
The practical base most guides skip. It sits on Metro Line 14 - the one line built with lifts at every station - which changes everything if someone in your group can't manage stairs. Quieter, more residential, more space for the money. You trade postcard atmosphere for actually being able to get around.
A baguette tradition and a croissant or pain au chocolat, eaten standing up. Look for shops advertising themselves as artisan boulanger, and for the Grand Prix de la Baguette winners' plaques some display in the window. Every neighbourhood has a good one within a few minutes' walk - you do not need to travel for this.
Rue Montorgueil (2nd) and Rue Mouffetard (5th) are pedestrianised runs of cheesemongers, greengrocers and traiteurs. Marche d'Aligre (12th) pairs an open-air street market with the covered Marche Beauvau and is the least touristy of the three. Marche des Enfants Rouges in the Marais is the oldest covered market in Paris and is now largely hot-food stalls - go at lunch, expect a queue.
Steak frites, onion soup, confit de canard, and the plat du jour chalked on a board at midday. The lunchtime formule - a set two or three courses - is how Parisians actually eat out and is the same kitchen at a fraction of the dinner effort. Cafes serve all day; kitchens in proper restaurants generally do not.
Where the city eats when it isn't eating French. Vietnamese pho and banh mi around Avenue de Choisy in the 13th, North African couscous and Tunisian sandwiches in Belleville, and South Asian food along Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis and in the covered Passage Brady. This is also the easiest part of Paris for halal and for real vegetarian cooking.
Ile de la Cite on foot. Sainte-Chapelle first, then out to the square in front of Notre-Dame, then across the small Pont Saint-Louis to Ile Saint-Louis. The whole sequence is under twenty minutes of flat walking and you never touch the Metro. Cite (Line 4) or Saint-Michel (Line 4, RER B/C) at either end. Note that Sainte-Chapelle's famous upper chapel is reached by a tight spiral staircase with no lift.
Cross to the Left Bank and work uphill through the Latin Quarter: the Pantheon, then down Rue Mouffetard for the market street, then over to the Jardin des Plantes or back up to the Luxembourg Gardens to sit down. About thirty minutes of walking spread across the afternoon; Line 10 and RER B shadow the route if legs give out.
The Seine at dusk. Walk the Right Bank quays from Pont Neuf west to Pont Alexandre III, which is the most ornate bridge in the city and the one worth the detour. River boats board near Pont Neuf and by the Eiffel Tower if you would rather sit.
The Louvre. The glass pyramid is the main entrance; the Carrousel du Louvre concourse and the Porte des Lions open only at busier times and only for people already holding a ticket, so book a timed slot online whichever door you end up using. Come out into the Tuileries and walk the length of the gardens to Place de la Concorde. Line 1 runs directly under this entire stretch if you need to shortcut it.
Cross the Passerelle Leopold-Sedar-Senghor footbridge from the Tuileries straight to the Musee d'Orsay, or carry on up the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. Either way, take Line 1 or RER C back rather than walking a third time - Paris distances add up quietly.
Montmartre. Line 2 to Anvers, then the funicular up to Sacre-Coeur - it takes a standard Metro ticket or a Navigo pass and saves you the staircase, which matters more than it sounds. Come down slowly through the back lanes to Abbesses for Line 12, avoiding the crowded tourist stretch below the basilica.
RER C from Gare d'Austerlitz, Musee d'Orsay or Champ de Mars to Versailles Chateau Rive Gauche, then a short walk. Around forty minutes each way. Be realistic about the scale: the palace and gardens together are several kilometres of walking on gravel, and the queue is outdoors. A little road train circles the estate if you want the gardens without the distance.
SNCF train from Gare Saint-Lazare to Vernon-Giverny, then a shuttle bus that meets the trains. Roughly an hour on the train. It is a garden, so it is seasonal - closed over winter - and it is at its best early in the day before the coach groups arrive. Check the season dates before you commit.
TGV from Gare de l'Est, around forty-five minutes, which makes it a genuinely easy day. A Gothic cathedral where French kings were crowned, and Champagne houses within walking distance of the centre with cellar tours that need booking ahead.
Paris is harder work than it looks, and the Metro is the reason. Most of the network is not step-free: Line 14 is the line built with lifts at every station, and elsewhere you should expect long staircases, frequent changes with more staircases, and no escalator. If you are travelling with a parent who tires on stairs, or pushing a stroller, plan around buses instead - the RATP bus fleet is low-floor with ramps and wheelchair spaces, and buses run everywhere the Metro does, just slower. Trams are step-free too. Check the RATP lift status on the day, because lifts do go out of service. Above ground, the centre is flat and walkable, which is the good news. The bad news is cobbles in the Marais, and Montmartre being an actual hill with staircases built into the streets. Cafe seating is tight and cafe toilets are very often down a spiral staircase in the basement - worth knowing before you build a day around one. On the big sights: the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay both have lift access to the main collections, and both offer priority entry for a visitor with reduced mobility plus a companion - arrange that with the museum in advance rather than turning up and joining the general queue, because which side entrances are open varies by day. The Eiffel Tower has lifts, though the top-level lift can shut in high wind. Sacre-Coeur means either the funicular or a long climb. Two things people from the GTA underestimate. First, the flight is roughly seven hours nonstop from Pearson and it is an overnight - you land in the morning having barely slept, so do not book anything real for day one. Second, Paris heatwaves are now routine in July and August, and many older Paris hotels and apartments have no air conditioning at all. If you are bringing older parents in high summer, confirm air conditioning in writing before you book, and treat the middle of the day as rest time.
The euro. Tap-to-pay is accepted almost everywhere, including ticket machines and buses, and a Canadian chip-and-PIN card works fine - know your PIN, because signature is not a thing here. Carry some cash anyway: open-air market stalls, some bakeries and a few small cafes are cash-only or set a card minimum.
French law requires the price shown on a cafe or restaurant menu to already include service, so a tip is genuinely optional rather than socially compulsory. Rounding up, or leaving a small amount on the table for good service, is normal and appreciated. North American percentages are not expected and nobody will chase you for one.
230 volts, 50 Hz, Type E sockets - two round pins plus a protruding earth pin in the socket itself. Simple Type C two-pin plugs also fit. Phone and laptop chargers are dual-voltage and need nothing but the adapter. Anything Canadian that is 110-volt only, which includes a lot of hair dryers and curling irons, needs a converter, not just an adapter, or you will destroy it.
Safe to drink. Eau de Paris says the water is tested on average around ten times between source and tap, and the city has roughly 1,300 public fountains and water points. In a restaurant, ask for une carafe d'eau and you will get free tap water instead of the bottle they were about to sell you.
French. English is widely understood in central Paris, in hotels, and in every museum. The one rule that actually matters: say bonjour before you say anything else, in every shop, every bakery, every time. Walking up and launching straight into a question in English reads as rude and you will feel the difference in the reply.
Global Affairs Canada warns that pickpocketing and bag and phone snatching occur frequently in France, and specifically flags the RER network around Paris and the international rail routes to London, Brussels and Amsterdam. The recurring Paris set pieces are the friendship-bracelet approach on the steps below Sacre-Coeur, the clipboard petition around the Louvre and Eiffel Tower, and someone 'finding' a gold ring at your feet. All three start with a stranger closing the distance - keep walking. Global Affairs also warns about illegal taxis at the airports: at Charles de Gaulle, ignore anyone offering you a ride inside the terminal and use the official taxi rank or a booked car.
Late spring and early autumn are the sweet spots. August is quiet as locals leave; winter is cool but atmospheric.
Compare the ways to get there, then build a day-by-day plan.
Fly from Toronto (roughly 7 hours nonstop). Once there, onward European trains are easy — compare rail on Omio.
The Métro and RER are quick and dense; central Paris is wonderfully walkable; and the Seine ties the sights together.
Late spring and early autumn are the sweet spots. August is quiet as locals leave; winter is cool but atmospheric.