Climbing 4 Days In Paris, France, Down To One Warm Madeleine

I went to Paris with a loose plan and a metro pass, and I walked most of it. Four days. Four neighbourhoods, roughly. I am a former travel agent so I still book things ahead out of pure reflex, and in this city that reflex saves you literal hours.

What follows is the actual shape of my days. Morning coffee, one big thing, a long walk, something to eat that I thought about later. I have kept the sections short so you can lift what you like and drop the rest.

A warning. Almost everything here involves stairs.

Day 1, The Tower and the Seventh

Day one is the obvious one and I am not apologising for it. The Eiffel Tower, the view of the Eiffel Tower, the park under the Eiffel Tower. Then a slow drift into the seventh arrondissement where people actually live, buy their vegetables, and drink coffee sitting down.

It is a small radius. You could do the whole day without touching the metro once.

Eiffel Tower

Morning one. I had a timed e-ticket and I walked past a queue that a woman near me said had already eaten an hour of her day. Buy in advance. That is the entire tip and it is the best one in this post.

The system is smoother than it looks. First security check does not ask for your ticket. After that you follow the green E-Tickets Elevator sign and get scanned at the second check. Lift to the second floor takes about a minute.

I stopped at the second floor. Skipped the summit. Honestly the second floor is where you want to be, high enough to read the whole flat sprawl of the city and you keep the extra money. Paris is not a vertical place, the extra height changes less than you would think.

Plan two hours including security. Then down the steps and up the hill to Trocadéro, ten minutes on foot across the river.

Place du Trocadéro et du 11 Novembre

Cross the Pont d’Iéna and climb. That is the whole journey.

Late morning here and the terrace was already three deep with people angling for the same photograph. It is the postcard view, the one where the tower sits dead centre with the river below it, and it exists because the ground is high and everything else gets out of the way. Worth doing once. It is also the most aggressively touristed patch of pavement in the seventh, so keep your bag zipped and your phone in a pocket, not a hand.

Twenty minutes and I was done. Take the photo, admire the sweep, move along.

Back over the bridge and south into the residential streets. Fifteen minute walk toward Rue Cler, and the crowds drop off almost immediately once you are two blocks from the river.

Rue Cler

By lunchtime I was on Rue Cler and it felt like a different city entirely. Pedestrian only, no cars, just a long stretch of greengrocers, butchers, flower stalls, bakeries and cafés with chairs pushed out into the street.

I bought fruit I did not need. The produce is genuinely good and the baguettes come out soft and warm well into the evening, which several people told me like it was insider information.

Not everyone rates it. One review I read called it a nice neighbourhood street and nothing more, and I get that, it is not a monument. But if you have just come from Trocadéro you will be grateful for somewhere that behaves normally. Skip it on a weekend though, it gets hectic.

Half an hour for a wander, longer if you sit down for lunch. Then a ten minute walk back toward the tower and the green expanse of Champ de Mars.

Champ de Mars

Late afternoon, and the lawn was full of people who had clearly planned better than me. Blankets, bread, bottles of something cold. There are drinking fountains dotted around for refilling, which matters in summer.

This is the free version of the Eiffel Tower and arguably the better one. The whole structure sits in frame, unobstructed, from École Militaire all the way down. If you arrive about an hour before dusk you get daylight, sunset and full dark in one sitting, plus the sparkle on the hour once the lights go on.

It gets very busy near the tower base. Walk further down the lawn and the crowd thins out fast. Watch your pockets, everybody says the same thing about pickpockets here and everybody is right.

Honestly an hour goes fast here. Then a fifteen minute walk east to the Musée Rodin.

Musée Rodin

The garden. That is why you come.

I arrived late afternoon on a weekday and bought a ticket at the machine with no wait at all, which after the tower felt almost suspicious. Seven acres of grounds around an old mansion on Rue de Varenne, with The Thinker and The Gates of Hell placed out among the trees and gravel paths rather than penned indoors.

I spent more time outside than in. Inside is worth it too, lots of windows, light bouncing off the marble, Camille Claudel’s work alongside his. But the garden is the thing. There is a café, clean bathrooms, and I watched a rabbit cross the lawn near the hedges like it owned the place.

Ninety minutes felt right. Then a ten minute walk back west to Rue Augereau for coffee.

Constant.

Small place, corner of Rue Augereau, and my feet were finished. I had the jambon, Comté and cornichon sandwich. Crisp bread with a proper chew, briny pickle cutting through the cheese, exactly the thing after a day of walking.

Then a madeleine, which took a few minutes because they warm it, and came out with crisp edges. Worth waiting for. The filtered Ethiopian was excellent, light acidity, no sourness, and the cappuccino here was the best I had in the city for the price.

The guy running the counter was patient with my terrible French and switched to English without making it a thing. Seats inside and out. Prices are reasonable, which in the seventh is not nothing.

I sat outside until it got properly dark, then walked back to the hotel with the tower sparkling behind me on the hour. Day one, done.

Day 2, Louvre to Left Bank

Big museum day, but I capped it. Three hours in the Louvre, then out into the gardens before my brain gave up. After that it is a straight line east through arcades, across to the island, and down into the fifth.

Book the Louvre slot early. Book Sainte-Chapelle too. I will keep saying it.

Louvre Museum

I started early with a booked slot, which is the only sensible way to do this. Queues were long by the time I came out.

Here is what I learned. You cannot see it. Not in a day, not in twelve hours, not ever. So pick three or four things and let the rest go. I did the Denon wing, the Napoleon III apartments, and then wandered.

The Mona Lisa is small and the room moves in one direction only. Fine. See it, then turn around, because The Wedding Feast at Cana is directly behind you and it is enormous and detailed and almost nobody is looking at it. The Napoleon III apartments were the surprise, absurdly gilded and barely crowded.

It is very easy to get lost. I walked in circles twice.

Three hours, then out through the Pyramid and straight into the Tuileries. Two minutes.

Tuileries Garden

By lunchtime my head was full and I needed grass.

The Tuileries runs from the Louvre to Place de la Concorde in one long formal sweep, gravel paths, clipped trees, fountains with big carp swimming in circles. Those green metal chairs are free and movable, so you drag one to the water’s edge and sit. I did exactly that for a while and half the people around me had fallen asleep.

There are kiosks for coffee and ice cream, reasonably priced for the location. From the upper steps near Concorde you get a view back along the whole axis with the Eiffel Tower off to one side.

Forty five minutes and I felt human again. Then a ten minute walk north across Rue de Rivoli into the second, toward Galerie Vivienne.

Galerie Vivienne

Glass roof, mosaic floor, and almost nobody in it.

Early afternoon and I ducked into Galerie Vivienne mostly to get out of the sun. It is one of the covered passages that riddle the second arrondissement, nineteenth century arcades built for shopping when the streets were filthy, and this one has survived in beautiful condition. Tiled floor underfoot, iron and glass overhead, light coming down soft and grey.

The shops inside lean expensive and decorative. I bought nothing. That was not the point. The point is that you step off a loud street and the sound level drops by half, and for ten minutes Paris feels like a private thing.

Half an hour, tops. It is small.

Then a twenty minute walk south across the Seine to the Île de la Cité and Sainte-Chapelle.

Sainte-Chapelle

I had a timed ticket and still waited close to half an hour. Without one people were being told an hour, an hour and a half. There are separate lines by time slot plus one for walk-ins, and security is near airport level with a full body scanner.

Then you climb the narrow spiral staircase and everything is worth it.

The upper chapel is walls of stained glass, floor to ceiling, and the whole room glows when the sun catches it. People go quiet without being asked. It is small, though, and there was scaffolding with mirrored panels in one corner when I visited, marking off restoration work. The entry fee for the size of the space is steep. Get the combo with the Conciergerie next door or a museum pass.

Thirty to forty minutes inside. Then a seven minute walk east to Notre-Dame.

Notre-Dame Cathedral of Paris

Late afternoon, and the queue on the parvis looked catastrophic. It moved in about fifteen minutes.

Entry is free. You can reserve a free timed slot online, and you should, but there is a separate line for people without one and it does keep moving. I had not booked and it cost me a quarter of an hour.

Inside is brighter than I expected after the restoration. The stone has been cleaned back to something pale and the lighting is deliberately soft rather than floodlit, which was the right call. The crown of thorns is on display and handled with real care, not as a gimmick. There is a free audio guide app on the official site if you want the detail.

Dress like you are in a church. People forget.

Forty five minutes, then cross to the Left Bank. Shakespeare and Company is a five minute walk.

Shakespeare and Company

No photos allowed inside. Best rule in Paris.

There was a line on Rue de la Bûcherie but it moved. Once you are in, the place is tiny rooms and wooden staircases and books shelved floor to ceiling with beds tucked in as sofas. Slightly worn, a bit cluttered. There is a reading nook upstairs where you can sit for a while.

Is it overrated? A little. It is a famous bookshop and it is priced and crowded like one. But being unable to take your phone out changes how you move through a room, and I browsed properly for the first time in ages. Buy something and they stamp the inside page.

Half an hour if the queue is kind.

Then a fifteen minute walk south and uphill toward Rue Gay-Lussac for dinner.

Les Papilles

Book this. Days ahead. I mean it.

Evening, near the Luxembourg Gardens, and Les Papilles is a bistro built inside a wine shop, bottles floor to ceiling on every wall, all of them for sale. There is no à la carte. The owner comes over and explains the market menu for the day and that is what you are having.

Mine was a velouté to start, then braised beef, then a blue cheese with prunes, then panna cotta. Four courses, family style, generous to the point of comedy. The passion fruit panna cotta another table got made someone actually laugh out loud.

If you want choice, go elsewhere. If you want to be fed by someone who clearly loves feeding people, come here.

I walked back through the fifth afterwards, full and slow, and did not mind the hill one bit.

Day 3, The Marais End to End

Day three lives entirely in the Marais and the streets just north of it. Oldest square in the city, a writer’s apartment, a falafel queue, a Picasso collection in a mansion, a covered market from 1628.

Total walking distance is small. Total eating is not.

Place des Vosges

Day three started with a sandwich on a bench. Best decision of the trip.

Place des Vosges is the oldest planned square in Paris, built in the early seventeenth century, and it is a perfect red brick rectangle with arcades running the whole way round and a lawn in the middle. Locals sprawl on the grass. Nobody is in a hurry.

Here is the thing worth knowing. Go to number 6, in the corner, and there is an entrance to a hidden courtyard behind it that almost nobody walks into. Quiet, beautiful, empty. The main square gets busy by midday and that courtyard does not.

Aristocrats used to duel here until it became punishable by execution, which seems fair.

Forty five minutes with lunch. Then walk about thirty seconds to the Victor Hugo house, same corner of the square.

Maison de Victor Hugo

Free. Genuinely free, and the bathrooms are clean, which after three days of walking I had started to treat as a headline feature.

Hugo lived here from 1832 to 1848 and wrote parts of Les Misérables in these rooms. You climb the stairs into his apartment and it has been kept in its original decor, six rooms, four floors of material in total. The chinoiserie room is extraordinary, all red and lacquer and far stranger than anything I expected from him.

What surprised me most was the artwork. He drew, constantly, dark ink washes and odd landscapes, and there is a whole section of it. I had no idea. The Cosette sculpture at the end stopped me for a minute.

No air conditioning, worth knowing in summer. An hour is plenty.

Then a seven minute walk northwest to Rue des Rosiers.

L’As du Fallafel

There is a queue. There is always a queue. Look at the restaurants either side of it with empty tables and you will understand why.

I waited about fifteen minutes on Rue des Rosiers before a guy came down the line taking orders directly, which speeds everything up considerably. Cash only. I got the falafel special, stuffed with grilled aubergine, cabbage, tahini and hot sauce, and it was messy in the best possible way, sauce running down my wrist within two bites.

The falafel itself is crunchy outside, fresh inside, properly fried. Spicy is mild, if you were wondering. One order of fries feeds several people.

Evening had no line at all when I passed back later. Saturday lunchtime is chaos. Plan accordingly.

Eat it standing up, then walk eight minutes north to Rue de Thorigny.

Musée National Picasso-Paris

After the Louvre this was a relief. Mid-afternoon and it was busy but never crushing.

It lives in the Hôtel Salé, a seventeenth century mansion on Rue de Thorigny, and the building alone justifies the ticket. Staircases, sunlit salons, odd little passageways that make wandering feel like discovery rather than a route march. There is a basement level people miss, do not miss it.

The collection is the richest public holding of Picasso anywhere and it covers everything, paintings, sculpture, ceramics, sketches, photographs, plus his own collection of African art. What got me were the portraits of the people he loved. Across wildly different styles the affection stays visible.

There is a café at the top with good coffee. Benches in some rooms for sitting.

Two hours. Then a five minute walk north to Rue de Bretagne and the covered market.

Marché couvert des Enfants Rouges

Google Maps sent me to the wrong door. Look for the gap in the buildings on Rue de Bretagne, it is easy to walk straight past.

Inside is a covered market dating to 1628, the oldest in Paris, and now essentially a very good food hall. Moroccan, Lebanese, Japanese, French, plus fruit and veg and a seafood counter. I had oysters and a glass of white standing at a counter, which is a fine way to spend twenty minutes.

One rule to know. Seating belongs to whichever stall you bought from, and you will get moved along if you sit at the wrong tables. It gets tight on Sundays. Taking food to the park nearby is a reasonable move.

Thirty minutes to walk it. Longer if you commit.

Then ten minutes north on foot to Boulevard du Temple.

Bouillon République

Reserve or come early. I turned up at six and got in. People without reservations were being quoted close to two hours later that evening.

A bouillon is an old Parisian working class institution, cheap classic food served fast, and this one is enormous, wooden, loud, with tables jammed close enough that you will hear your neighbour’s whole life story. Escargot, bone marrow, leeks vinaigrette, boeuf bourguignon, most mains between ten and fifteen euros. Four of us could eat starters, mains and dessert and stay near a hundred.

It is not fine dining and it does not pretend. Food is solid, portions large, service brisk. The crème brûlée is the one to order.

You pay by QR code at the table, which is oddly the smoothest thing about it.

I walked back down through the Marais afterwards, streets still full at ten. Good end to the day.

Day 4, Uphill Into Montmartre

Last day and it is all north and all up. Pastry first, because the queue is shorter early, then the hill itself, in stages, so it does not wreck you.

I ended at Sacré-Coeur on the steps with the whole city laid out flat below. Good way to finish.

Mamiche

Last morning, and I was on Rue Condorcet early on purpose.

Mamiche is small, takeaway only, no seating, and there is basically always a line. It moves fast. I got a plain croissant and a slice of the chocolate babka, which they weigh so the price depends on how big your slice is. The babka was the winner by a distance, soft and moist with melted chocolate swirled through and not too sweet. The croissant was buttery and flaky and about one euro fifty.

Mixed opinions on this place, worth saying. Some people find it overhyped and the croissant dry. Mine was not, but it is a social media famous bakery and the pressure of that shows. The beignets are good.

Ten minutes if the queue behaves. Eat it walking.

Then a fifteen minute uphill walk north into Montmartre proper, toward Rue Cortot.

Musée de Montmartre

Rue Cortot, and suddenly no tourists at all.

Renoir had a studio in this building. So did Suzanne Valadon, and her studio has been recreated upstairs, which was the part I lingered over. The permanent collection is small and tells the story of Montmartre itself, the cabarets, the posters, the artists who lived here when it was cheap and rural. Temporary exhibitions rotate and were good when I went.

The gardens are the real reason to buy the ticket. Terraced, green, looking out over the vineyard, with a café tucked into them. You can pay six euros for café access alone if the museum does not interest you. Coffee options are limited to americano, oddly.

Sixteen euros feels steep for the size. The garden earns it back.

An hour. Then five minutes uphill to Place du Tertre.

Place du Tertre

Late morning by now and the square was already thick with easels.

Place du Tertre is the painters’ square, a small cobbled space ringed with restaurants where portrait artists set up and work on anyone who sits still. It is the most commercial corner of Montmartre by a mile and it knows it. Prices at the terrace cafés reflect the postcode rather than the food.

I still liked it. Watching someone sketch a stranger in charcoal in fifteen minutes is genuinely good entertainment, and the side streets running off the square are lovely and immediately quieter. Step off the square and you get the Montmartre people come for.

Do not sit down for lunch here. That is my opinion and I stand by it.

Twenty minutes. Then a short metro hop southeast toward Avenue Parmentier, about twenty five minutes door to door.

Le Consulat Voltaire

Afternoon, and a complete change of register.

Le Consulat Voltaire on Avenue Parmentier is a warehouse style space that works as art centre, bar and live music venue at once. Concrete and height and exhibitions on the walls, with a bar attached and a restaurant right outside. There were artists in residence when I stopped by and their work was hung through the main room.

Good beer selection at fair prices. The bartender let me taste two before I picked, which nobody has to do and it made the stop.

There is usually something on in the evening, samba one night, a friend’s band the next. Check what is happening before you commit. It is not a monument, it is a place where people who live here go, and that was exactly what I wanted on day four.

An hour. Then back on the metro north to Montmartre, twenty five minutes.

Basilique du Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre

I got off at Abbesses, which was a mistake. That exit alone is 176 steps before you reach street level, and then the hill starts. There is a lift at the station and a funicular up the hill, and your Navigo pass works on it. Learn from me.

Entry is free, just a bag check. Inside is calm and enormous and thick with candles under the arches. No photos inside, so you look properly instead. You can pay eight euros to climb the dome if your legs are still speaking to you. Mine were not.

The view is the thing. Late afternoon, sitting on the steps with the whole flat grey and gold spread of Paris in front of me, is exactly how I would end this trip again.

I stayed until the light went. Then walked down slowly through the side streets, done with my four days and already thinking about the next ones.

Four days is not enough for Paris and it never will be, but it is enough to stop feeling like a stranger. Book the big things ahead, walk more than you think you can, and leave one afternoon completely unplanned. That is the whole method.

If you have a bouillon you love or a bakery you would fight for, tell me. I keep a list, and I will be back.