One Week in Paris: An Offbeat Itinerary

A full week keeps the 6-day plan ’s route intact and ends on the two things a shorter trip never has time for: a proper flea market and a slow morning with no booked slot at all. Need less time? Back up to the 6-day version ; every day below except the last also appears there.

Book these before you go

The 7-day plan at a glance

Day Focus Must-book
Day 1 Ile de la Cite, Sainte-Chapelle, the Seine Sainte-Chapelle
Day 2 The Louvre, Palais-Royal, Le Marais Louvre
Day 3 Montmartre, Sacre-Coeur, the windmills None, but arrive early
Day 4 Pere Lachaise, Canal Saint-Martin, the Eiffel Tower Eiffel Tower
Day 5 The Catacombs, Montparnasse Catacombs
Day 6 Arc de Triomphe, Champs-Elysees, the Passages Couverts None
Day 7 Latin Quarter, Saint-Ouen flea market, a last Seine cruise None

Day 1: The island where Paris started

Base yourself on the Ile de la Cite and the Left Bank today; it keeps the walking distances short. Start at Notre-Dame’s nave, free, no ticket, though a same-week reservation online skips the second queue. Notice the new spire’s rooster while you are outside: it was refitted in 2024 with relics sealed inside its base, including a sliver of the crown of thorns and the names of everyone who worked on the rebuild. Walk five minutes to Sainte-Chapelle . Use the timed slot you already booked; a 10am booking has to be used by 10:30am, and morning slots go first in high season. After lunch, cross to the Seine’s Left Bank quais and browse the bouquinistes , the green book stalls that have worked this stretch of riverbank since the 16th century. In the evening, walk toward Ile Saint-Louis for Berthillon ice cream, then loop back for a Seine cruise at dusk if the light is right, about EUR19, no booking urgency. If you still have energy, the Passages Couverts in the 2nd arrondissement stay open under glass roofs well past dark, a good rain-proof option if the evening turns wet.

Day 2: The museum with 35,000 objects and the palace next door

The Louvre needs a booked, timed slot for every visitor now, no exceptions in July and August 2026, and it is closed on Tuesdays; check that before you build this into the calendar. EUR22 for EEA residents, EUR32 for everyone else, under-18s free. Go straight for the Denon wing’s Greek sculpture and the Egyptian Antiquities rather than fighting the crowd around the Mona Lisa in Room 711, unless you actually want that specific photo. Afterward, walk through the Tuileries Garden and the Palais-Royal’s arcaded courtyard, striped Buren columns, quiet even when the Louvre queue outside is not. In the evening, cross into Le Marais for dinner around Rue des Rosiers or Place des Vosges, one of the few Paris neighbourhoods where shops stay open on Sundays too. Reserve a table if you want a sit-down dinner there on a Friday or Saturday; the neighbourhood’s better bistros fill up fast once the Louvre crowd disperses for the evening.

Day 3: The hill built as an apology

Arrive at Sacre-Coeur before 9:30am. The basilica itself is free, and arriving early matters less for the building than for the steps outside, where the bracelet scam works the crowds all day. Someone will try to loop a string around your wrist before you can decline; pull back, say non, and keep walking. The basilica was funded partly as penance after the Paris Commune, on a hill that was one of the Commune’s last strongholds, a piece of political history most people photograph without knowing. Skip Place du Tertre’s marked-up crepes and walk instead to Rue Lepic for Montmartre’s two surviving windmills, Moulin de la Galette, now a restaurant, and Moulin Radet, then to Rue des Abbesses, where the neighbourhood actually eats. The Musee de Montmartre, in the building where Renoir once kept a studio, covers the hill’s artistic history and has a garden view of the basilica without the queue.

Day 4: A cemetery worth an afternoon and a tower worth the wait

Pere Lachaise is 44 hectares of tombs, tree cover, and cobbled paths, easily worth two hours even if you only look for Jim Morrison, Chopin, Oscar Wilde, and Moliere. It is free and open daily. From there, Canal Saint-Martin, Metro or a 25-minute walk, has iron footbridges and cafes that serve the neighbourhood rather than tour groups. Use the Eiffel Tower slot you booked for the evening: the 2nd floor by lift is EUR23.50, the summit is EUR36.70, and both are timed-entry, with sunset slots the first to sell out. Arrive within your slot window rather than early; there is no benefit to waiting outside it.

Day 5: Six million Parisians who are not on any map

The Catacombs hold the remains of roughly six million people, moved here from the city’s overflowing cemeteries starting in the 1780s. Use the slot you booked exactly 7 days ahead at 10:00 Paris time; there is no walk-up line to join, and the windows go fast in summer. The entrance sits at Denfert-Rochereau, a short walk from Montparnasse; spend the rest of the day at Montparnasse Cemetery, where Baudelaire, and Sartre and de Beauvoir sharing a headstone, are both a short walk apart, or up the Tour Montparnasse for a skyline that, unlike the Eiffel Tower’s, actually includes the Eiffel Tower. Both cemeteries charge nothing to enter. If the Catacombs slot falls in the afternoon instead, flip the order and start at Montparnasse Cemetery before the queue at Denfert-Rochereau builds; the ticket office holds no place for latecomers, only the timed window itself. For lunch between the two, Rue Daguerre’s market street south of the cemetery serves better, cheaper food than anything directly at Denfert-Rochereau, and it stays open through the early afternoon lull most Paris restaurants observe.

Day 6: The avenue everyone walks and the arcades nobody does

The Champs-Elysees is worth walking once for the scale of it, but eat somewhere else; the cafes directly on the avenue are priced for footfall, not quality. The Arc de Triomphe runs EUR22 in high season, April to September, and EUR16 the rest of the year, with the rooftop terrace included and Wednesdays discounted to the low-season rate through summer. Spend the afternoon in the 2nd arrondissement’s Passages Couverts instead: Galerie Vivienne’s mosaic floor, Passage des Panoramas’ old stamp and postcard dealers, and Passage Jouffroy’s toy shops and wax museum entrance, all glass-roofed, free to walk, and largely ignored by anyone doing the Champs-Elysees the same day.

Day 7: A slow morning and the market that never fits in a weekend

Spend the morning in Saint-Germain-des-Pres and the Latin Quarter: Shakespeare and Company for secondhand English books, then the Luxembourg Gardens if the weather holds. In the afternoon, take the Metro to Marche aux Puces de Saint-Ouen, one of the largest antiques markets anywhere, and treat it like a museum where everything has a price tag, since a week is enough time to actually browse rather than just pass through. If you have not taken the Seine cruise yet, do it at dusk on your last evening, about EUR19, departing Port de la Bourdonnais; it is the cheapest way to see Notre-Dame and the Eiffel Tower from the one angle you have not used yet. Save Versailles or Disneyland Paris for a different trip; both need a full day of their own and neither fits inside a city-only week.

How do you get between these days without a car?

You do not need one. Central Paris runs on a flat EUR2.55 Metro-train-RER fare and a EUR2.05 bus-tram fare regardless of zone, loaded onto a Navigo Easy card for EUR2. Paper carnets stopped selling, and stopped working, after 31 December 2025. Saint-Ouen sits on Metro Line 13 or 14, a longer hop than any other day on this route, so leave more transit time for it than for the rest of the week.

Book a Marais or Saint-Germain stay before either neighbourhood’s well-reviewed rooms sell out. Book the Catacombs and the Eiffel Tower the day you commit to this trip; they sell out weeks before anything else on this list does.