travelnut, that's an excellent site. Now all you iPODders can download free walking tours like the PocketPCers have been doing for years. Download a book. Save a tree.

Paris has special advantages because it is physically dense and small (and thus everything is theoretically within walking distance), it has a beltway that makes it easy to see when you are wandering outside the city limit, and it has a superb public transit system that can take you rapidly back to your hotel from anywhere in the city should you become tired of walking. Who could ask for more?

http://www.parismuseumpass.com/en/home.php

Use the above official site for the Paris Museum Pass to get lots of info. Click on Museums and Monuments then click a specific site.

Next click Practical information to get opening times, closest metro stops and if the museum is free on the first Sunday of the month. At the bottom you can alse see which other monuments and museums are close to the one you are checking out.

This website does not list daily entrance fees as it is a site for all the museums available with the museum pass. However, you will see a link directly to each museum's own website to get that info.

Idaho,

Go to www.google.earth.com, type in Paris,France, you can see the street for the hotel and possible the hotel itself. Distance between items of interest may be important to you -- local transportation is excellent as stated earlier. You will do fine.

Craig

Or just type <b>3 rue rouget de lisle paris</b> into Google and hit &quot;Maps.&quot;

Another suggestion -

Why not reserve the &quot;wandering&quot; for the evenings? The museums and such tend to close by 5 or 6, but the street life is lively for several hours after that. Of course if you want to shop, then come back in the morning.

Know which areas tend to be lively. Just by chance, I found that the Latin Quarter was; and looking for cold drinks, I wandered almost as far as Pigaille from Place de la Concorde. Pigaille seemed pretty alive at 9PM.

Anywhere that's big on restaurants will probably be lively well after business hours for the museums and galleries.

When we first went to Paris, we took one of the hop-on/hop-off bus tours on our first day.
It gave us a great overview of the city, oriented us to where everything was, and allowed us to note the things that looked interesting. Plus the commentary gave us a bit of context that we otherwise would have missed (yes, you feel like a big goobery tourist on it, but what the heck, you ARE a tourist)
We did a lot of walking, and wanted to see most of the sights. We'd pick an area per day, see the things in that area we wanted to, and just wandered a lot (ie. see the Champs de Mars and Eiffel Tower, also explore the 7th in one day, as opposed to trying to see the Eiffel Tower and Montmartre in the same day).

Thank you all for the great ideas. Especially the bus tours to get oriented to where everything is.

Hello, Going to Paris without an agenda would not be a good idea. You will find yourself lost in the Beautiful City Of Lights not seeing anything. You can still be a free spirit if you do some homework. The public transit system is great. Buy a pass you can use for the metro and bus. Get a schedule for the bus and you'll be able to get on and off when you want to stop to explore. A little planning will be the difference of a nice trip turned great trip. My husband and I plan out our trips with more than we usually do, so as never to waste our vacation being at a loss of not knowing what to do or where to go. Take a look at our web page: Traveling with Emily and Jim, you might get some ideas there. We plan to go to Paris again in the fall. Have a great trip, maybe we'll see you there. Regards, Emily

Idaho_jaane

Bus tours don't get one oriented to where everything is - unless you follow your route on a map.

It turns out that all you really need is the map. Here is is: http://www.ratp.info/orienter/f_plan...aux&amp;fm=pdf

Actually, when I first when to Paris, I found getting lost in the city to be quite pleasant and interesting. You may get lost, but you're never far from your hotel, thanks to the ubiquitous M&eacute;tro, which can take you home whenever you get tired (or walking, of being lost, or both).

You're my kind of traveler! Sometimes just soaking in the atmosphere is as important- if not more so- than seeing all the sights. Take a list with you of what you don't want to miss, and wing the rest.

I recommend doing that during the second half of your trip, when you know the neighborhoods better; on the first half, set a loose schedule of one or two things to do each day (in the same general area of the city). Create the schedule by finding out what is open when (such as museums, which are closed on different days and some of which have convenient evening hours). Read through a guidebook (and the Paris thread here) and make notes of the things that intrigue you most. Bon journee!

OP Q - Yes