Paris runs on entry slots. Get those right and the rest is walking.
Which Louvre ticket skips which queue, what an hour on the Seine costs, and whether Versailles fits a morning. Reviews of every tour you can book in Paris and the towns its trains reach.
The Louvre, the tower, the river, and the palace west of town.
The four bookings a first Paris trip is built around, and what each one costs.
01The first morningLouvre Museum Timed-Entrance TicketTimed entry to the Louvre with no guide attached. Take an opening slot and walk to the Denon wing before the coaches arrive.
02The one everybody wantsEiffel Tower Entry Ticket with Optional Summit AccessLift access up the tower, with the summit as an add-on. The evening slots go first and the queue at the pillar is not the same queue.
03The hour on the waterSeine Cruise & Crepe Tasting near the Eiffel TowerAn hour of the Seine from a seat, bridges and quays at eye level. The cheapest way to work out where everything actually is.
04The day out westVersailles Palace and Gardens Full Access TicketFull access to the palace and the gardens at Versailles. Forty minutes on the RER C, and a whole day once you are through the gate.
Four doors into Paris, and what it costs to get through each.
Almost every Paris morning starts at a turnstile. Here is what the four big ones charge, what the ticket actually includes, and which of them punishes you for arriving without a slot.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · Louvre Museum Timed-Entrance Ticket
The LouvreTimed entry, or a guide who knows the short way to the Mona Lisa.
Eiffel TowerLift to the second floor, with the summit stage sold on top.
Musée d’OrsayThe impressionist floor in a railway station, straight in off the quay.
Île de la CitéSainte-Chapelle’s glass, the cathedral square and the Conciergerie.
All 158 museum and monument tickets →
Six Paris fixtures, and the best way into each.
The pyramid and the queue beside it, the iron on the Champ de Mars, the hill at the top of the 18th, an hour of river, a palace on the RER and a red windmill in Pigalle.
Paris was laid out from the water, and it still reads best from there.
An hour from Pont de l’Alma takes you past the Conciergerie, Notre-Dame and the Louvre’s river front for less than a museum ticket. Add a table and it becomes the evening. The illuminated run after dark is a different city again.
The best Paris days often start at Gare Saint-Lazare.
Every day trip →
Versailles is forty minutes on the RER and Giverny an hour by train from Saint-Lazare. Mont Saint-Michel and the Loire châteaux take the whole day and a coach seat. All of them run to a timetable that will not wait for a late start.
The palace, and whether you need the gardens too
Palace entry is timed and the State Apartments funnel everyone through the same doors. The gardens are a separate afternoon, and on fountain days they are a separate ticket as well.
Giverny, and the water-lily pond in person
Monet’s house and the pond he painted for thirty years sit an hour down the Seine valley. The garden shuts for winter, so the season decides this one before the calendar does.
Mont Saint-Michel in a day from Paris
Four hours each way by coach for three on the rock. It is a long day and everyone who does it says the abbey at the top was worth the bus.
The days out more travellers book than anything else in Paris.
Every Paris tour we have reviewed →Tickets, cruises and guided rooms, in the order Paris actually books them, with what each costs.
1
Louvre Museum Timed-Entrance Ticket
Timed Louvre entry gets you inside within 30 minutes, with access to the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and vast art collections.
From · $26
Read our review →
2
Disneyland® Paris 1-Day Ticket
from $61
3
Versailles Palace and Gardens Full Access Ticket
from $17
4
Arc de Triomphe Rooftop Tickets
from $18
5
Orsay Museum Entry Ticket
from $15
6
Evening River Cruise with Music
from $27
7
Eiffel Tower Entry Ticket with Optional Summit Access
from $29
8
Eiffel Tower Summit or Second Floor Access
from $59
What a day in Paris actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A good number of the best Paris days come in under the price of lunch on the Champs-Élysées.
Museum entries, an hour on the river, neighbourhood walks and the standard palace ticket.
Guided rooms at the Louvre, summit access, dinner afloat and the day trips west.
Private guides, the cabaret with champagne, Normandy and the Loire by coach.
Paris does not close at six. It changes shift.
The tower lights sparkle on the hour until one. The bateaux keep running with the quays lit behind them. And in Pigalle the cancan has been going since 1889, dinner optional.
Everything after dark →
Montmartre, the Marais and the Latin Quarter reward walking and punish driving.
The hill still has a vineyard and a working funicular. The Marais keeps the oldest square in the city and the best falafel queue. The Latin Quarter is a hill of bookshops with the Panthéon on top. Three afternoons, no metro needed once you are there.
- 1Paris Top Sights Half Day Walking Tour with a Fun Guidefrom $76
- 2Montmartre Hidden Gems and Scenic Highlights Walking Tourfrom $38
- 3Montmartre Hill French Gourmet Food and Wine Tasting Walking Tourfrom $145
Three things Paris does that nowhere else bothers with.
Museums and river boats exist everywhere. A cancan line running since the Belle Époque, a three-course dinner served at eight knots, and a laminated dough with its own guild do not.
The Cabaret Line
The red windmill opened the year the Eiffel Tower did, and the cancan it made famous is still danced twice a night to a live orchestra. Sixty dancers, feathers by the kilo, and a dress code the doormen do enforce. Book the nine o’clock if you want the room lit for the second act.
- 1Moulin Rouge Cabaret Show Ticket with Champagne★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 16,088 reviews
- 2Dinner Show at the Moulin Rouge★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 3,333 reviews
- 3Seine Dinner Cruise, Eiffel Tower Access and Moulin Rouge Show★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 2,310 reviews
The Bateau Table
A glass-roofed boat leaves the Pont de l’Alma with the kitchen already working, and three courses arrive between the Musée d’Orsay and the Île Saint-Louis. The turn at the Statue of Liberty replica is when the tower starts sparkling. Window seats are allocated, not chosen — ask when you book.
- 1Seine River Panoramic Views Dinner Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 10,611 reviews
- 23-Course-Dinner Cruise on the Seine with live music★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 7,248 reviews
- 3Seine River Bistronomic Dinner Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 5,272 reviews
The Pastry Bench
French bakers fold butter into dough in a sequence with legal definitions attached, and the classes here hand you the rolling pin rather than a viewing gallery. Two hours gets you croissants or a tray of macarons and the reason yours crack at home.
- 1Montmartre Cheese, Wine & Pastry Guided Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 2,255 reviews
- 2Paris Croissant Small-Group Baking Class with a Chef★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 910 reviews
- 3Macaron Class at Galeries Lafayette★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 905 reviews
Four Paris bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this city can be decided over breakfast. These four run on timed slots, show calendars and a train timetable that takes no interest in when you land.
- 01Louvre Museum Timed-Entrance TicketEntry is by half-hour slot with a cap on each one. Weekend and late-opening slots go weeks out, and the door will not take you early.
- 02Eiffel Tower Entry Ticket with Optional Summit AccessLift tickets release on a fixed calendar and the summit stage sells separately. Sunset slots are the first to disappear in every month of the year.
- 03Moulin Rouge Cabaret Show Ticket with ChampagneOne room, two shows a night, allocated seating. The dinner sitting fills before the show-only one and neither is held for walk-ups.
- 04Versailles Palace and Gardens Full Access TicketPalace entry is timed, and on fountain days the gardens charge separately. Turn up without a slot and the queue at the gate is the whole morning.
The Louvre shuts on Tuesday. The Orsay shuts on Monday.
Every big Paris collection keeps one dark day a week, and they deliberately do not share it. Land on the wrong one and the plan collapses at the door. The fix is knowing which side of the river is open, and having a kitchen, a boat or a cellar to fall into instead.
Lunch is the long meal here, and half the city’s tours are built around it.
A market walk before the stalls thin out, a cellar under the Marais, a bench where you fold the butter in yourself. Book the class that ends as lunch and the tasting that finally explains what a Bourgogne label is telling you.
Right bank, left bank, then the train west: the run that works first time.
The Seine
Montmartre
VersaillesBy landmark — and the belt beyond
By kind of day — ticket, table, deck or train
The newest Paris tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Private Photoshoot with the Iconic Eiffel Tower in Paris
Read our review →
Family escape Game with kids and teens on the Île de la Cité
Read our review →
Paris Revolutionary Walking Tour: Iconic French Sights & Stories
Read our review →
Batobus Hop-On Hop-Off Cruise & Landmarks Audio Tour
Read our review →
2-day Private Mont Saint-Michel, 3 Loire Castles, D-Day Express
Read our review →
Guided and Private Tour of 3 hours through Paris aboard a Citroën 2cv
Read our review →
Montmartre Experience : Guided Tour, Tasting, and Art
Read our review →
Paris Jewish Quarter Marais Smartphone GPSAPP Audio Walking Tour
Read our review →
Versailles Palace & Gardens Audio Tour – Private Transportation
Read our review →
Private Transfer Orly Airport ORY & Disneyland Paris
Read our review →