Paris Overview: A Week in the City of Love

Notre Dame at Night | Paris, France | To Make Much of Time

UPDATED: 2/4/2023

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We talked about going to France for several years before we actually took this trip. When we finally booked it, we weighed whether to spend a handful of days in Paris and then head out to the French countryside or to just stick with Paris. I can’t think of another trip we have taken where we stayed in one city the entire week but we knew Paris had so much to offer and didn’t want to feel like we were rushing to jet off to the next spot. We easily filled our 7 days in Paris and didn’t even get to every spot on our list! Don’t worry, we feel other regions of France deserve the same dedicated focus, so we will be back to France at some point!

Paris is a sensory experience, not a city for just a quick pit stop, and the week staying in the same rental apartment in the heart of the city a block from the Seine just across from Notre Dame allowed us the luxury of settling in - of developing a few favorite breakfast spots for freshly baked croissants, of finding some delicious restaurants that we went back to again while still having time to try new places, of shopping at the local market, and of being able to easily walk around and gain our bearings. I have read countless novels that take place in Paris and before this trip read up on Paris history and memoirs of Americans in Paris. Now, a simple mention of Paris evokes in me the sights, smells, and sounds of the city and what it is to be in and among its beautiful buildings. That is one of my favorite things about traveling in general - the sense of a place that you take away with you and always carry.

We took our trip at the tail end of March and into early April, before peak season, where the weather was a tad chilly but the crowds were thin, so we experienced none of the crushing tourism that popular European cities are known for these days.

After we returned, many people asked what my favorite part of the trip was. I have never been good at having favorites because so many things are my favorite in one nuanced way or another so I usually just pick one to make life easy. My answer was: the food. We ate a lot of it. We washed it down with delicious Parisian coffee and espresso and bottle upon bottle of Bordeaux. We had dessert every night with dinner because who can say no to the decadence of Parisian pastries and sweets? What kind of soul-crushing weight would that ‘no’ carry? I did not want to find out. Sometimes we shared dessert, a delicate rejection of full-force gluttony. I ate until I was painfully full, another thing I never do, even on Thanksgiving, when it is practically required.

Le Coupe Chou is a delightful restaurant with excellent food and the best ambiance EVER.

But we did so much more than eat of course. Beyond eating, my favorite thing was everything rolled into a neat package of Our Explorations of the City. We explored Paris on foot, clocking in 54 miles (according to my fitness tracker) while there. We varied our explorations, checking out museums (well known and lesser known), gardens, the world’s most visited cemetery, a famous bookshop, national mausoleum, a palace, cathedrals, and a crypt with ruins of the early Parisian city center. To follow along on our day-by-day journey, check out the blog for each day. Prefer to get straight to topics that interest you? We have a lot of blogs planned that will cover everything from a dining guide to recommendations, history, and tips for visiting specific spots, so check back for links to those later!

Paris Museums We Visited

Louvre - read our blog here
Musée Rodin (museum containing works of the sculptor Auguste Rodin)
Musée National Picasso-Paris (museum containing drawings, painting, and sculptures by Pablo Picasso with a special exhibit including works by Alexander Calder)
Musée de Cluny, also known as musée national du Moyen Âge Paris (museum containing artifacts, relics, tapestries of the Middle Ages plus a secret surprise in its lower level) - read our blog here
L'Atelier des Lumières (an immersive art experience)
Musée de l'Orangerie (perhaps our most unique museum experience with a very creative display of Monet’s Waterlilies)

Paris Gardens We Visited

Jardin des Tuileries (the former site of the royal palace with a fascinating history)
Jardin des Plantes (Paris’ botanical garden)
Jardin du Luxembourg (half French garden, half English garden, all situated behind the former palace of Marie d’Medici, which is the French Senate building today)
Riverwalk along the Seine (not really a garden but there are a number of parks that dot it and the walk alongside is like a water garden experience, so just go with it)

I believe this was a part of Port de l'Arsenal Garden but I was more focused on wandering and taking pictures than remembering exactly where I was…. this is probably why a 30 minute walk took nearly 2 hours.

Paris Cathedrals We Visited

Notre-Dame de Paris (tour of the cathedral’s interior and the tour along the rooftop and into the bell tower - a scant week before the huge, immersive fire) - read our blog here
Sainte-Chapelle (built in 1248 with the most beautiful, extensive stained glass windows) - read our blog here
Cathédrale Saint-Louis de Versailles (tucked away in a street near the Versailles Palace)

Notre Dame Cathedral on a beautiful and cool early April day.

Paris Monuments We Visited

Panthéon (former cathedral, now the secular mausoleum housing the likes of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Victor Hugo) - read blog
Colonne de Juillet (a columnar monument in the middle of a traffic circle, marking the original spot of the Bastille, the famous epicenter of the French Revolution)

The Pantheon serves as a monument to French world influence. In the crypts below you’ll find many of the most influential French people.

Other Spots We Visited in Paris

Cimetière du Père Lachaise (a beautiful hilltop cemetery in its own right, well-known for a host of famous residents: Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, and many more)
Crypte archéologique de l'île de la Cité (go underground to look upon the archaeological findings previously buried just in front of Notre Dame including coins found on site and the uncovered walls of early Paris buildings and the original city wall to fortify the island town) - read our blog here
Palace of Versailles, including the estate grounds, Petit Trianon, and Hameau de la Reine (the latter two were Marie Antoinette’s private home, gardens, and a storybook village she created; we took a bike tour to explore more of the grounds than we could have done on foot) - read our blog here
Shakespeare & Company (a famous English-language bookshop along the Seine)
Place du Marche Notre-Dame (street market near Versailles)
Place des Vosges (Paris’ oldest planned square with beautiful architecture, located in the trendy Marais neighborhood)