Our 7 Day Paris Itinerary

7 Day Paris Itinerary - what to do in paris, itinerary ideas, Paris site seeing ideas, one week in paris

Just a note - some of the links below are affiliate links and I may earn a commission if you purchase through them. Links like these always go to relevant products and services and the commission earned helps keep this blog running.

Despite the title of this blog, this American actually has been in Paris before. Only for 7 days, which is like .0007% of my total life, but I was there. Mon Cherie and I took my dream trip to celebrate his 30 birthday in 2018. We went to the UK a year before and felt like we spent so much time seeing the countryside, we didn’t actually get much of London! So we took our sweet time and used the entire week to really experience Paris. I’m sure there will be another trip sometime to see the rest of France and to explore Paris even more.

So how would I describe my 7 Day Paris Itinerary below? A first-timers, not super budget but not fancy trip, with plenty of authentic experiences mixed with some very appreciated touristy things. That descriptive enough for you?

You may notice I don’t list most of the places we ate. To be honest - we got pastries for breakfast most days and got grocery/market items to picnic with for most of our lunches. There was also a lot of street crepe snacking and popping into random bakeries for a macaron or two. As for dinners, my absent minded self didn’t write down the names of restaurants and threw away old receipts, so it’d be really difficult to figure out where we ate. Most of the meals were so-so anyway. We’re not big foodies and this was one area where I really failed to plan. We played it by ear most evenings which is why I don’t know the names of the restaurants and wasn’t always thrilled with the food. The few eateries I do mention below I remembered because they really impressed us! It was worth hunting down the info to tell you all. I’m hoping next time we visit Paris we can really plan to dine in some stand out places. If you have recommendations, please leave them in the comments below!

You can head to my Paris page to see posts dedicated entirely to specific activities (like visiting the Louvre), tips for visiting Paris, and more.

Day 1

Arrived to some rain!

Took a very jet-lagged nap

Explored the Champs Elysee

Saw the Arc de Triomphe

We arrived on a Red-Eye flight and fully planned to make the most of this day - but it was pouring rain when we arrived and the jet lag was way worse than we were anticipating. So once we got all checked in to our hotel we took a nap. Bad for the jet lag I know! We ended up being fine the rest of the trip and sometimes you just need to conk out in a comfy hotel bed for a few hours to really kick your trip off right.

For the duration of our trip, we stayed in the Best Western Premier Opera Liege. We really enjoyed both our stay there and the location in proximity to all the things we wanted to see/the Metro. It wasn’t a bad walk to Montmartre or the Opera and it was steps from the Liege and Paris Saint-Lazare Metro stops. We’re not big amenities people so a clean place to sleep and shower for a decent price in a good area is usually all that’s on our checklist. But the best part was the huge king-sized bed. At this point in our lives, we were in the tiniest apartment imaginable and sharing a full-sized bed which usually resulted in one of us moving to the couch mid-night, so a king-sized bed was heavenly!

We eventually woke up from our nap and took the Metro out to the Champs-Élysées. We only popped into a few shops because quite frankly, most of the shops here are things you can find in your local mall. Especially living so close to Chicago’s Mag Mile and Oak St., not even Chanel or Prada enticed me. We have them here and I can’t afford them anyway. Aaron did find a super cute striped sweater in a shop I did not recognize, so there are a few French finds here, but it’s one of those things we did just to say we did.

We ended this stroll at the Arc de Triomphe which we went to the top of another day, but dared not do in the rain! Oh yeah, it was still raining. We made a quick stop in a grocery store for some things to munch on throughout the week and have some picnic lunches with for the rest of the week.

Day 2

Montmartre

Sacré-Cœur

Moulin Rouge

Eiffel Tower

Trocadéro

Champs de Mars

Ponte Alexandre III Bridge

Day 2 of our 7 Day Paris Itinerary felt like the true first day of our trip. We woke up this day with little to no jet lag to be found. It was a bank holiday in Paris which meant most of the attractions would be closed. Seemed like a good day to head to Sacré-Cœur and explore Montmartre. I guess everyone visiting Paris had that idea, because this was the only time we visited Paris that I thought “It’s crowded.”

We grabbed breakfast at a little cafe in the Montmartre area and then started exploring. We made our way up to the Sacré-Cœur, a Roman Catholic Basilica that sits atop the highest point in Paris! It’s also the second most visited site in Paris, aside from the Eiffel Tower. It was fun to window shop at all the trinket shops in Montmartre and weave through the crowds up and down the hills. The Moulin Rouge, La Maison Rose, and many other iconic Paris photo opps are in this area, so it was a pleasant, albeit crowded, morning filled with lots to see. If you want to get a postcard for your grandma, a snowglobe for your aunt, or any other touristy trinkets, this was the area to shop in. There were also some very cute houses in this area that I couldn’t resist snapping photos of. You can read my full recap of our morning in Montmartre here.

From there we hopped on another Metro and it was off to the Trocadero - a prime viewing site for the Eiffel Tower. Our visit occurred in the spring so everything was in bloom. This made it easy to ignore the crowds and the many people selling Eiffel Tower trinkets and just take it all in. The gardens around the Trocadero are beautiful and I may have taken one too many floral photos. Just kidding, no such thing!

We headed across the street to walk around the Champs de Mars and just enjoy the scenery. It was lovely. We didn’t feel the need to go up in the tower - I’ve heard the view is not that great and just seeing it from the ground was enough for me!

We explored a little of the 7th Arrondissement along the river and made our way to the Ponte Alexandre III Bridge, another iconic Parisian photo spot. We grabbed some street crepes in the area as well for lunch. I forgot how many times on this trip we stopped for street crepes, so as you read below, just know that was a nearly daily activity!

To finish out the day we headed across the bridge back to the Champs Elysee to explore the Jardins des Champs-Élysées, see the outside of the Petit and Grand Palais Museums (which we didn’t go inside, but is on my list for next time!). We grabbed a great burger for dinner on our way back to our hotel.

Day 3

Notre-Dame

Sainte-Chapelle

Palais Garnier

Louvre

This may have been my favorite favorite day of our entire week in Paris. We started the morning by getting some pastries for breakfast at a beautiful little boulangerie called Maison R&S (They don’t have a website, facebook, or TripAdvisor page or else I’d link it!), which was just around the corner from our hotel. This became a tradition we continued doing nearly every morning of our trip.

Our trip was in May of 2018, about a year before the horrible Notre-Dame fire. We headed to the cathedral super early in the AM to avoid the crowds. It was such a beautiful building. I hope they can rebuild because there was so much history in every detail of the building. The marble floors were worn and stained from thousands of years of millions of visitors, the columns made of worn and cracking stone. I’m not a religious person, but I really loved the peacefulness and calm I felt in this building.

Next we headed a few blocks away to Sainte-Chapelle. If you’re looking to be wowed, look no further. This is another chapel that’s filled with history and the beautiful windows make this a unique visit. It was built in 1248 and features 15 enormous stained glass windows from that time period.

We strolled around the island where both of these sites are located - the Île de la Cité, as well.

Seeing these two sites took us less time than I was expecting and honestly, site seeing is exhausting! So we went back to the hotel and took a lil nap. Just an hour! Then we were up and running again (not actually running, because I would never.)

Our afternoon consisted of a guided tour of the Palais Garnier - the main Opera House in Paris. I highly recommend this! You can get into the Opera House with a standard admission and even get an audio guide, but we chose to book a guided tour online and it was so so worth it. I have so much love for the Phantom of the Opera, which you can read more about in my Palais Garnier post, so this was a must-do for me.

Post Palais Garnier we grabbed dinner and popped into some shops in that area including the Galeries Lafayette - a giant department store with some beautiful architecture.

To finish out the day we headed to the largest museum in Paris - the Louvre. It was an extended hours day and we were able to spend the entire evening perusing the art. I highly recommend this museum not only to see the iconic Mona Lisa, but also because there are so many rooms filled with other amazing art. Even if you only stay for an hour or so, it is so magnificent. Just be sure to check their website before you go, because different wings/exhibits are closed on certain days. Make sure you go on a day the things you want to see are open!

Day 4

Early morning photos

Versailles

Day 4 of our 7 day Paris itinerary started nice and early so we could get some Eiffel Tower photos without anyone else in them! I highly recommend this for any popular photo attraction - for getting the best lighting and to avoid the crowds.

After we snapped a few shots, we got on a train for a little day trip to the Palace of Versailles. It was home to Marie Antoinette from 1774 until her death in 1792 and features some of the most intricate and luxurious architecture including the famous Hall of Mirrors. You can read more about our day at the palace in my Visiting Versailles post.

We packed a picnic for lunch that we were able to enjoy while we spent the afternoon exploring the gardens around the palace, then caught a mid-afternoon train back to the city.

The evening was spent doing more exploring, this time wandering the streets of the Second and Third Arrondissement. In case you haven’t noticed, neighborhood exploring is one of our favorite things to do when we travel! We also caught the Eiffel Tower all lit up at the end of our day while strolling the Seine.

Day 5

Tuileries Gardens

Musee d'Orsay

Day 5 did not go as planned. This was Aaron’s actual birthday and we had planned to do another day trip - this time to see Monet’s Gardens at Giverny. However there was a strike going on with the trains, so we were only able to get a really late return train back to Paris. We decided to skip it and take a more leisurely pace to complete the last few things on our must see list in the city.

We kicked off the day by heading to the Jardin des Tuileries to relax into our morning and just enjoy the springtime with a few pastries. We got to the Musee d’Orsay just as it opened and spent quite a bit of time there. Another great place to see some beautiful art, located in an old train station! It is the home to the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist pieces in the world, including many works by Monet and Van Gogh.

This ate up a good portion of our day, and we called it early that night to get some rest.

Day 6

Musee de l’Orangerie

Climbed to the top of the Arc de Triopmhe

Latin Quarter

Luxembourg Gardens

Rue de Cremouix

Day 6 of our week long Paris trip started at the Musee de l’Orangerie, which was spectacular. Two large white rooms with wall-to-wall canvases of eight giant water lily paintings by Monet. Monet assisted with designing the architecture of the vestibule himself and donated the canvases after the first World War in order to create a peaceful space for the Parisians. It truly achieved that goal of being a harmonious place in such a bustling city, especially since we were some of the first into the museum so there were very few people around. The museum also housed a ton of great works in the lower level that I would not skip if I were you!

After such a relaxing morning, we headed to the Arc de Triomphe and climbed the 284 steps to experience the best view in Paris! The Arc de Triomphe was built as a monument to those who died in the French revolution and the wars that followed as a result and is now one of the most iconic places to visit in Paris. As I mentioned before, we chose this over the Eiffel Tower to get a spectacular view of the city.

Once we got our fill of magnificent scenery, we traipsed back down the stairs and headed across town to the Latin Quarter. I am so sad we saved this for the last day because I could have spent hours exploring! I got so caught up buying things in the adorable shops in the area, that I totally forgot we were planning on exploring both the neighborhood and the Jardin du Luxembourg. We were weighed down by the bags of our new purchases and I felt like I didn’t really get to enjoy our time in the gardens as much. Next time we come back, I will spend a full day in this area and get my shopping in at the end!

We headed back to the hotel to drop off our finds and did a quick costume change to head to dinner and the most beautiful street in Paris - the Rue de Cremouix. It was no surprise there were a number of people there with their professional cameras getting shots in front of these beautiful houses as the sun was setting.

We shared a romantic dinner to celebrate our last night in Paris at Le Bourgogne Sud - one of the few restaurants I can remember from this trip and one that served a spectacular meal!

Day 7

Our departure date! We were so sad to leave as we had the best time and still felt like there was so much of Paris to explore. We grabbed breakfast at the hotel because this was a Sunday and our favorite bakery down the street was closed. We headed to the airport but not before sneaking a few pictures of the super cool doors on the same street where our hotel was located.

So there you have it - our 7 Day, week long, complete Paris itinerary. There are a number of things I would have done differently, but overall it was an amazing trip! Have you ever been to Paris? Did you do any of the things on our itinerary? Let me know below because I will never get sick of reading about Paris!