5 Days in Paris: Where to Eat, Sleep, and Skip
Most first-time itineraries send you to the same eight monuments and the same six tourist-trap cafés. Here is the version we'd actually plan for a friend — by neighbourhood, by meal, and including the things we'd specifically not do.
Most Paris itineraries you'll find online are organised around monuments — Day 1 is the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, Day 2 is Versailles, Day 3 is Notre-Dame and the Latin Quarter, and so on. Built that way, you end up eating exclusively in tourist-pricing zones, queuing for everything, and never seeing the city the way Parisians actually live in it. The version below is what I send to friends visiting for the first time who have five full days. It's organised around neighbourhoods rather than monuments, and it deliberately puts the famous sights in supporting roles. You'll still see the Eiffel Tower (you can't avoid it), but you won't queue for it.
Where to stay — the single most important decision
Skip the 1st arrondissement (around the Louvre) and the area near the Eiffel Tower in the 7th. Both are beautiful, both are convenient, both are 50% more expensive than they need to be and largely empty of Parisians after 8pm. The neighbourhoods I'd send a first-timer to instead: the Marais (3rd–4th, central, walkable to almost everything, lively at night, mid-priced); the 11th arrondissement around Bastille and Oberkampf (the new wave of bistros and natural-wine bars, slightly cheaper, the most interesting food scene in the city); or the Latin Quarter (5th, proper Parisian charm, walking distance to the Jardin du Luxembourg). Hotels we'd default to: Hotel Particulier Montmartre or Hôtel des Grands Boulevards (€280–400, mid-range upscale), Hotel National des Arts et Métiers (€220, smart Marais option), or the more affordable Hôtel Mama Shelter Paris East (€140, design-forward, eastern Paris).
Day 1 — Marais, the Île Saint-Louis, and your first proper bistro
Land morning. Drop bags. Walk to a café for an actual café crème (not from Starbucks). Spend the late morning wandering the Marais — Place des Vosges first (the oldest planned square in Paris, 1612), then the smaller streets to its north (rue de Bretagne, rue des Filles du Calvaire). Lunch at the Marché des Enfants Rouges, the city's oldest covered market (1615) — Moroccan, Italian, Japanese, French stalls, eat at the counter. Afternoon: Cross to the Île Saint-Louis (the smaller island, the residential one — the one most tourists skip in favour of Notre-Dame on the larger Île de la Cité). Walk the entire perimeter. Get a Berthillon ice cream (since 1954). Late afternoon: Back to the Marais for the Picasso Museum (closes 6pm) or the Carnavalet Museum (free, the city's biographical museum, criminally underrated). Dinner at Robert et Louise on rue Vieille-du-Temple — wood-fire steaks, no reservations, get there at 7pm or queue. End the night at Le Mary Céleste for cocktails.
Editor's tips
- Carnavalet Museum is free and one of the great undervisited museums in Paris
- Berthillon is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays — go to Bertillon café around the corner instead
- Robert et Louise has 18 seats and queues form by 7:15pm — be early
Day 2 — Saint-Germain, the Luxembourg Gardens, and the Musée d'Orsay
Breakfast at a corner café. Train to Saint-Sulpice (line 4) and start at the Jardin du Luxembourg as soon as the gates open (7:30am summer, 8:15am winter). Walk the gardens until 10am. By the time you're done, you'll need a coffee — Café de Flore or Les Deux Magots are both deeply touristed but they earn the recommendation here for one specific reason: they're early-morning Parisian institutions, and at 9:30am they're more local than tourist. Late morning: Musée d'Orsay (book the timed-entry online — €16). Spend 2 hours, no more. The Impressionists are on the top floor; head there first. Lunch at Bistrot Paul Bert (the one in the 11th, not the imposters) — book 7 days ahead, get the steak frites or the entrecôte. Afternoon: walking the 6th and 7th arrondissements, the Louvre exterior (you don't need to go inside on a 5-day trip — see it next time). Dinner: the rooftop restaurant at the Tour Montparnasse (Ciel de Paris) — yes really. The food is fine; the view is the best Eiffel Tower view in Paris because you're looking AT the Eiffel Tower from a tall building, instead of away from it. €60 per head with wine. The Eiffel Tower itself: skip the climb on a 5-day trip. The €30 + 90-minute queue isn't worth it when you can see it from above for less.
Day 3 — Belleville, Père Lachaise, and the actual Paris food scene
This is the day that separates real Paris from tourist Paris. Take the métro to Belleville (line 11) — the most diverse, affordable, and visually interesting Paris neighbourhood that almost no first-time visitor sees. Walk the rue de Belleville for the Asian groceries and the Vietnamese restaurants (this is where the city's pho and bánh mì culture lives). Climb to the Parc de Belleville for the best view of Paris — better than Sacré-Cœur, no tourists. Walk south through the Buttes-Chaumont park (Paris's most romantic, Hemingway's favourite). Lunch at Le Baratin in Belleville — Argentine chef, Burgundian wine list, this is where Paris chefs eat on their day off. Book 7 days ahead. Afternoon: Père Lachaise cemetery — Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, Chopin. The cemetery is enormous and beautiful; spend 90 minutes minimum. Dinner: Septime — €120 per head, 7-course tasting menu, book 28 days ahead at noon Paris time (literally — that's when the next-month reservations open). It's the best restaurant under €150 in the city.
Editor's tips
- Septime reservations: 28 days in advance, online, at 12:00 Paris time. Set an alarm.
- Père Lachaise gates close at 6pm sharp in winter, 6:30pm in summer — don't get locked in
- The Parc de Belleville view is at the top of the rue Piat — the steepest street in Paris
Day 4 — Versailles or Canal Saint-Martin: choose your day
Two genuinely good options. Option A: Versailles. Train from Saint-Michel (RER C) takes 30 minutes; book a timed-entry palace ticket online at the Château website (€21). Plan to leave Paris by 7:30am — the palace opens at 9am, and the queue length doubles every 15 minutes after 10am. Spend the morning in the palace, lunch in the gardens (bring food or eat at the Hameau de la Reine café), and afternoon in the Petit Trianon and the gardens. Train back to Paris by 5pm. Option B: Stay in Paris, walk Canal Saint-Martin (the 10th arrondissement). Brunch at Du Pain et des Idées (the bakery, expect a 25-minute queue at 9am, deal with it). Walk the canal north. Visit the Marché Saint-Quentin or the boulevard Magenta for window shopping. Lunch at Holybelly 5 — pancake-and-eggs Australian-Parisian cafe culture, this is what 21st-century Paris breakfast looks like. Afternoon: the rue du Faubourg du Temple flea markets, then the Place de la République and the bookshop Mona Lisait. Dinner: 52 Faubourg Saint-Denis (the bistro) or, if you want to commit, Clamato in the 11th. Most first-timers do Versailles; most second-time visitors do Canal Saint-Martin. The day you pick reveals which Paris trip this actually is.
Day 5 — Montmartre, the food markets, and the goodbye dinner
Final day. Train to Abbesses (line 12) and walk Montmartre while the streets are still half-empty (before 10am). Visit Sacré-Cœur (free, climb to the top of the dome for €6 if you've skipped the Eiffel Tower). Walk Place du Tertre quickly — the painters here are a tourist scene. Walk DOWN the hill to the Saint-Pierre fabric market or the rue Lepic for a different (less touristy) Montmartre. Late morning: Marché des Enfants Rouges again, or the Marché d'Aligre in the 12th — the city's best Saturday food market, open every day except Monday. Lunch picnic in the Jardin des Plantes if the weather permits. Afternoon: the Galerie Vivienne and the other 19th-century covered passages — this is the Paris that nobody photographs but that residents love. Final dinner: book a Michelin one-star you've been wanting to try (Granite, Plénitude, Les 110 de Taillevent — €130–250 per head), or go bistro-classic at L'Ami Jean in the 7th (€85, the rich, un-photogenic, profoundly French version of dinner). Either way, eat properly. You're saying goodbye to the city that has set the standard for restaurant culture for 200 years.
Things first-timers usually do that we'd skip
Three Paris-tourist staples that I would now actively send a friend away from. First: queueing for the Eiffel Tower climb. The view from the top is perfectly fine; it costs €30, takes 90+ minutes including queue, and the experience of climbing the tower is no better than seeing it from above (Tour Montparnasse, Ciel de Paris, Sacré-Cœur). Second: Notre-Dame in 2026 — the cathedral has reopened (December 2024), but the visit in early 2026 is timed-entry, queued, and significantly less complete than it will be in 2027. If you're a Notre-Dame purist, wait. Third: the bouquinistes (the green book stalls along the Seine) are charming but they sell tourist-tat 90% of the time. Buy a real book at Shakespeare and Company instead. The fourth honourable mention: Galeries Lafayette's rooftop view. It's free, it's pretty, but it's in the worst tourist neighbourhood in the city. Skip and view from somewhere quieter.
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Frequently asked questions
Five days covers Paris well if you resist the temptation to see every major sight. This itinerary covers the Marais, Saint-Germain, Montmartre, and one day-trip option — which is more Paris than most visitors see in seven days because it chooses depth over breadth. A realistic expectation: you will not see everything. You will, however, experience the city at a pace that lets you remember what you actually saw.
The Paris that lives in your memory from this trip will not be the Eiffel Tower at 11am — it'll be the Tuesday morning Marché d'Aligre before the other tourists arrived, the table at Septime on Thursday that you booked six weeks ago, the Belleville view you found by walking away from the Sacré-Cœur crowd. Paris is not a monument list. It's a city you learn over multiple trips, two or three neighbourhoods per visit, and this itinerary covers two of its best ones.
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Camille Laurent
Senior Travel Editor · Based in Lisbon · Bali
Camille has spent the last 9 years living in or reporting from over 60 countries. Former contributor to Condé Nast Traveler and Monocle, she focuses on Southeast Asia, Mediterranean Europe, and the Middle East. Currently based between Lisbon and Bali.
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