Travel guide
Five days in Paris without spending two of them queuing
Three timed tickets, one arrondissement per day, and the museum nobody in the group wanted to visit that everybody talked about afterwards.
By TripSake travel desk · Published · Updated · 12 min read
- Trip length
- 5 nights, Sunday to Friday
- Group
- 4 people, two first-timers
- Base
- One flat in the 11th, near Oberkampf
- Booked ahead
- 3 timed tickets, 2 dinners
- Daily walking
- 9 to 14 km
- Season
- Late April, 12 to 19 degrees and one full day of rain
The short answer
Five days in Paris works if each day stays inside one or two neighbouring arrondissements. Book the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and Sainte-Chapelle in advance, put the Louvre on a Wednesday or Friday evening, and keep Versailles as its own full day or drop it. Everything else can be decided the morning of.
What to take away
- Book the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and Sainte-Chapelle. Nothing else in Paris needs a timed slot.
- The Louvre on a Wednesday or Friday evening is half the museum and a third of the people.
- Versailles is a full day or it is a bad day. There is no morning version of it.
- One arrondissement a day. Paris is flat, which fools people into planning three.
- The best hour of our trip cost nothing and was a canal in the 10th at 19:00.
Paris is flat, and that is the trap
Barcelona has a grid that stretches distances and Lisbon has hills that punish them. Paris has neither, so every walk looks feasible on a map and the metro is good enough that you stop checking. The result is a plan with the Eiffel Tower at 10:00, the Marais at 14:00 and Montmartre at 18:00, which is about four metro changes and two hours underground.
Our first draft did exactly that on the Tuesday. We rewrote it on the Sunday night after realising the whole day was transit with three photo stops attached.
The version that worked keeps each day inside one district plus whatever is next door. You lose the feeling of covering the city and gain about three hours a day, most of which turns into sitting somewhere with a drink, which is the actual reason people like Paris.
- Day one: the 1st and the islands. Sainte-Chapelle, the Conciergerie, the river.
- Day two: the Marais and the 11th, entirely on foot.
- Day three: Versailles, and nothing else.
- Day four: Montmartre and the 9th, downhill after lunch.
- Day five: the 7th, the Eiffel Tower and the Rodin garden.
The three tickets, and the one everybody forgets
The Eiffel Tower sells its lift slots weeks ahead in spring and summer. Book the earliest or the latest slot; the middle of the day is when tour groups arrive. Stairs to the second floor cost less, are usually available the same week, and the queue is shorter by a wide margin.
The Louvre needs a timed entry even with a museum pass. The thing worth knowing is that it stays open late on Wednesdays and Fridays, and after about 18:00 the building empties out in a way that changes the experience completely. We were in front of the Vermeers with maybe six other people, at 20:15, in April.
Sainte-Chapelle is the one people forget. It is small, it holds a fixed number of bodies, and the security queue outside is shared with the courthouse. Book it, take a morning slot, and give it forty-five minutes. Its upper chapel is fifteen metres of stained glass on all sides and it is the single most impressive room in the city, which is not a sentence I expected to write about a building most itineraries list fourth.
Where to stay when there are four of you
We took a flat in the 11th near Oberkampf. It is fifteen minutes on foot to the Marais, the metro goes everywhere from there, and dinner within three streets costs roughly half of what the same meal costs on the Ile Saint-Louis.
The 5th and the 6th are the postcard answer and are priced accordingly. The 9th and the 10th are cheaper, well connected and where a lot of the newer places to eat have opened. The 18th is beautiful above the hill and noticeably rougher below it, which surprises people who booked on a photo of the Sacre-Coeur.
Avoid anything advertised as "steps from the Champs-Elysees". It is an eight-lane road with global chain stores on it, and the only reason to be there is to walk down it once to see that you did not need to.
The Versailles day we got wrong
Our plan had Versailles as a morning, back by 15:00, Marais in the evening. That does not exist. The RER C takes about 40 minutes each way from central Paris, the security queue takes 30 to 60 minutes if you arrive between 10:00 and noon, and the palace itself is a slow shuffle through rooms full of people photographing ceilings.
What we did not budget for was the garden, which is enormous and free on most days, and is the part everyone actually enjoyed. The Trianon estate and the Queen's hamlet are a further twenty-five minutes of walking from the palace and are much quieter.
Do it as a full day, leave before 08:00, and treat the palace as the shortest section of it. Or skip Versailles entirely and spend the day in the city, which two of our four would have preferred and were right to suggest.
Eating without booking everything
Lunch is the value meal here. A formule at midday, two courses with a glass, runs roughly 18 to 26 euros in most neighbourhoods, and it is often the same kitchen charging 45 in the evening. We ate our best two meals of the trip at 12:30.
Dinner needs a reservation for four in the popular areas, but only on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. On a Monday or Tuesday, walking into a full room and being seated is normal, and the city is quieter in general because a lot of places close at the start of the week.
The bakery rule is that the good one is the one with a queue of people who are not looking at their phones for directions. We did a slightly stupid comparison of four croissants in the 11th over two mornings, and the winner was the plainest shop with the worst signage.
The hour we did not plan
On the fourth evening we ran out of schedule near the Canal Saint-Martin and sat on the edge of it with bread, cheese and a bottle from the shop behind us, next to about two hundred other people doing exactly the same thing. It cost around nine euros a head and it is the part of the trip everyone brings up.
That is not a hidden gem. It is extremely well known and full of locals in their twenties every warm evening. The point is that it never appears in a five-day itinerary, because it is not a thing to see, and the only way it happens is if the evening is empty.
Leave two evenings blank. Paris fills them by itself.
What we would skip next time
The Champs-Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe climb. The view is genuinely good and there is a better one from the Galeries Lafayette roof for nothing, or from the Montparnasse tower, which has the advantage of including the Eiffel Tower in the picture.
The Moulin Rouge as an evening. It is expensive, it is entirely aimed at visitors, and the surrounding streets are the least pleasant part of Montmartre.
A Seine dinner cruise. The river is the best free thing in the city and you can walk the lower quays from the Louvre to Notre-Dame in half an hour. Paying 90 euros to eat a set menu while it goes past a window is a strange way to spend an evening.
Day by day
Five days in Paris, one district at a time
The plan as it ran after the Versailles day was rebuilt. Three timed tickets anchor it, two evenings were deliberately left empty, and the rainy day swapped itself into the Louvre slot without breaking anything.
Day 1
The islands and the 1st
Ile de la Cite, on foot8.9 km on foot
- 10:00
Sainte-ChapelleBooked
Sight · 45m
About 13 euros, timed. Go early: the security queue is shared with the courthouse and grows all morning.
- 11:15
Conciergerie
Sight · 1h
Combined ticket with Sainte-Chapelle saves a few euros. Marie Antoinette was held here, and the medieval hall is worth the visit on its own.
- 12:45
Lunch formule, Ile Saint-Louis edge
Food · 1h 30m
Two courses and a glass, roughly 22 euros. Walk one street back from the water and the price drops.
- 14:30
Notre-Dame exterior and the parvis
Sight · 45m
Free. Entry needs a same-day slot released in the morning and it goes fast.
- 15:30
Quai walk to Pont Neuf
Walk · 1h
Lower quays, not the road above. Free, and the best introduction to the city there is.
- 17:00
Shakespeare and Company, then the 5th
Walk · 1h 30m
Busy, small, and still fun. The streets behind it are quieter than Rue Mouffetard.
- 20:00
Dinner, 5th
Food · 2h
Walk-in on a Sunday. Nowhere needed booking this early in the week.
Verdict. The right arrival day. One ticket, short distances, and the river to sit next to when everyone gets tired.
Day 2
Marais and the 11th
Entirely walkable, no metro11.2 km on foot
- 09:30
Marche des Enfants Rouges
Food · 1h
Oldest covered market in the city. Breakfast here beats anything the flat could produce.
- 10:45
Musee Carnavalet
Sight · 1h 45m
Free permanent collection. The history of Paris in a mansion, and almost nobody in it on a weekday morning.
- 13:00
Lunch, Marais
Food · 1h 30m
Falafel on Rue des Rosiers if the queue is short, a formule around the corner if it is not.
- 15:00
Place des Vosges and the arcades
Walk · 1h
Free. Oldest planned square in Paris, and the grass is open to sit on, which is rarer here than it should be.
- 16:30
Picasso MuseumBooked
Sight · 1h 45m
About 14 euros. Booked, though a weekday slot was available two days out.
- 18:45
Walk into the 11th
Walk · 45m
Rue Oberkampf and the streets off it. The transition from tourist Marais to neighbourhood is about four blocks long.
- 20:30
Dinner, 11th
Food · 2h 30m
Booked for four. Half the price of the same food two districts west.
Day 3
Versailles, and only Versailles
RER C, 40 minutes each way13.8 km on foot, most of it in the gardens
- 07:40
RER C from central Paris
Travel · 45m
Leaving before 08:00 is the whole trick. An hour later and the security queue is 45 minutes.
- 08:45
Palace of VersaillesBooked
Sight · 2h 15m
Around 21 euros with a timed slot. The Hall of Mirrors at opening is a different building from the Hall of Mirrors at noon.
- 11:15
Gardens
Walk · 2h
Free on most days, a fee on fountain show days. Enormous. This is the part everyone in our group liked best.
- 13:30
Lunch in the gardens or in town
Food · 1h 15m
The estate food is poor and priced badly. The town of Versailles, ten minutes out of the gates, is much better.
- 15:00
Trianon and the Queen's hamlet
Sight · 2h
About 12 euros separately. Twenty-five minutes of walking from the palace, and the crowd thins out with every one of them.
- 18:00
Train back
Travel · 45m
Back in the city by 19:00 with nothing planned, which was correct.
Verdict. The day we rebuilt. As a full day it works. As a morning it was going to be a queue and a train.
Day 4
Montmartre and the 9th
Uphill in the morning, downhill all afternoon10.6 km on foot
- 09:00
Montmartre back streets
Walk · 1h 30m
Start at Lamarck-Caulaincourt and climb from the north. The tourist stairs on the south side are the ones in every photo and the worst way up.
- 10:45
Sacre-Coeur
Sight · 45m
Free. The dome costs a few euros and involves 300 steps for a view you can get from the steps outside.
- 11:45
Place du Tertre, briefly
Walk · 30m
Portrait artists and a hundred people. Ten minutes is enough and then the streets behind it are empty again.
- 12:45
Lunch, south Montmartre
Food · 1h 30m
Below Rue des Abbesses the prices become normal.
- 15:00
Musee de la Vie Romantique
Sight · 1h
Free permanent collection, a garden cafe, and roughly eleven visitors. The kind of place the group votes against and then likes.
- 16:30
Galeries Lafayette rooftop
Sight · 1h
Free. The dome inside and a rooftop that includes the Eiffel Tower in the view, which the Arc de Triomphe cannot.
- 19:00
Canal Saint-Martin, nothing planned
Open · 2h 30m
Bread, cheese and a bottle on the edge of the water. Nine euros a head and the best hour of the trip.
Day 5
The 7th and the tower
River side, last day9.4 km on foot
- 09:30
Rodin Museum garden
Sight · 1h 30m
Garden-only tickets are a few euros. The Thinker and the Gates of Hell are outside, and it is one of the calmest places in central Paris.
- 11:30
Rue Cler and the 7th
Walk · 1h
Market street. Touristy and still good for lunch supplies.
- 12:45
Champ de Mars picnic
Food · 1h 30m
Free apart from the food. Sit on the grass on the Ecole Militaire side, where the tower is in front of you rather than above you.
- 15:00
Eiffel TowerBooked
Sight · 2h
Around 29 euros to the top by lift, less by stairs to the second floor. Booked six weeks out for an April trip.
- 17:30
Trocadero and the walk back over the river
Walk · 1h
Free, and the classic view of the tower is from this side.
- 20:00
Last dinner, 7th or back in the 11th
Food · 2h 30m
We went back to the 11th, because by then it was the neighbourhood we knew.
Verdict. Tower last, not first. By day five the group knew what they were looking at from the top.
Charles de Gaulle is 45 to 60 minutes on the RER B, which is cheap and frequently unpleasant with luggage. Orly is closer and the Orlyval connection is quick. Both airports want you there earlier than you think on a weekday morning, and the RER B has a habit of being partially closed at weekends.
Honest comparison
Wanderlog, a Google Maps list and the group chat
Four people had been collecting Paris links for about three months: reels, a couple of TikToks about bakeries, two blog posts and a starred Google Maps list nobody maintained. By the time we sat down to plan, none of it was in one place, and about a third of the saved pins had no note explaining why they were saved.
That is the normal state of a group trip before it becomes a plan, and it is the part planners handle worst.
| What | Wanderlog, TripIt, Maps lists | TripSake |
|---|---|---|
| Saved videos into places | Wanderlog and Google Maps both start from a name you type. A fifteen second clip of a bakery counter is not a name. | Paste the link. The places shown or mentioned in the clip are identified and pinned with photos, ratings, price level and opening hours, with the video kept alongside so the pin still means something in six weeks. |
| Timed tickets as anchors | A booking is stored as a line in a list. Nothing stops you scheduling the Louvre at 18:00 and a restaurant at 19:30 on the other side of the river. | A timed booking fixes the day around it, with real travel time between stops rather than a straight line, and a warning when a stop lands while a place is closed. |
| Four people, one Versailles argument | Shared editing. Whoever cares most builds the day, and the disagreement surfaces on the platform at Saint-Michel. | Yes or no per spot, plus a poll when it matters. Ours was "Versailles or a fifth day in the city", it took four minutes, and the two who lost went anyway and enjoyed the gardens. |
| The person who will not install anything | Every collaborator makes an account first. In a group of four there is always one who does not, and then the plan lives in screenshots. | One invite link. Guests vote, add places and see the plan without signing up at all. |
| The rainy day | You rebuild the day by hand and hope you remember which museum was closed on Tuesdays. | Move the day and the plan reorders around the opening hours it already knows about. Ours swapped into the Louvre evening slot in about a minute. |
| Splitting the bill | A separate app, added on day three, with one person chasing it. | Expenses sit in the trip on the same member list. Photograph the receipt, split it, settle once at the end. |
| What it costs | Wanderlog Pro is an annual subscription, and in practice that means one person paying while three use the free tier. | Free, with no subscription and no premium tier, so everyone in the group has the same version of the app. |
Paris is the easiest city in Europe to research and one of the hardest to sequence, because everything is famous and nothing tells you what belongs on the same day as what. The work is not collecting. It is turning ninety saved places into five days that do not cross the river six times.
Questions travellers ask
Before you book
How many days do you need in Paris?
Five is comfortable and includes a full day at Versailles. Four works well if you skip Versailles. Three means choosing between the Louvre and the neighbourhoods, and most people are happier choosing the neighbourhoods.
Which Paris attractions need booking in advance?
The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and Sainte-Chapelle. Versailles needs a timed slot in high season. Notre-Dame releases same-day slots in the morning. Most museums can be walked into on a weekday.
What is the best time to visit the Louvre?
Wednesday or Friday evening, when it stays open late. After about 18:00 the building is dramatically quieter than it is at any point during the day.
Is Versailles worth it?
Yes, as a full day, leaving before 08:00, treating the gardens and the Trianon estate as the main event rather than the palace. As a half day it is mostly a train and a security queue.
Where should I stay in Paris with friends?
The 11th for value and food, the 9th or 10th for good transport and lower prices, the 5th or 6th if you want the postcard version and are willing to pay for it. Avoid the streets around the Champs-Elysees.
How do I turn saved Instagram reels into a Paris plan?
Paste the links into a TripSake trip. Each video is read for the places it shows or names, and those become map pins with photos, ratings and opening hours, with the clip attached. Places saved twice by different people merge into one spot.
About the author
The TripSake travel desk plans and walks the routes we publish. This one was tested by four people over five days in April and rewritten after the Versailles day went wrong.
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