MAS16

I’d like your help putting together a loose day-by-day schedule. I’m really looking for a realistic idea of what’s close together, time it will take to see, if we should walk to/from sites, etc. I’ve listed our must-sees by district – which I figured would be a good start. Now I need help from the experts! Which sites can be grouped together without rushing and giving us time to take in the neighborhoods?

Some basics for you to know:
- It's our first trip to Paris
- We’re arriving Feb. 9 (7:45 a.m.), staying in the 6th, and are departing Feb. 16.
- We’re not huge museum people, but don’t want to miss the big ones – however, we don’t plan on spending an entire day at the Louvre, for example
- We enjoy strolling through neighborhoods/taking in sites, taking photographs, shopping, eating (esp. pastries!), etc

1st Arrondissement - Musee du Louvre

4th Arrondissement
- Notredame (Ile de la Cit&eacute
- Sainte Chapelle (Ile de la Cit&eacute
- Time for strolling

5th Arrondissement - Strolling the neighborhood

6th Arrondissement - St. Sulpice/ Strolling

7th Arrondissement
- Eiffel Tower
- Musée d'Orsay
- Hôtel des Invalides/Napoleon's Tomb

8th Arrondissement - Arc de Triomphe/Strolling the Champs-Elysées

14th Arrondissement - Catacombs (tops on my husband’s list!)

18th Arrondissement - Sacré-Coeur/Strolling

tuscanlifeedit

Since you have so much time, why not one arrondisement a day?

While near the Louvre, visit the Tuileries, Place Vendome, maybe get all the way to the Place de la Concorde. Or head up into the 3rd or 4th for a stroll. Maybe around the Pompidou. Even if you don't want to go in, the area is fun and fascinating.

From the Notre Dame area, you could add in a walk through the 4th and to the Place des Vosges. Very nice.

jody

It's a short walk from St Sulpice to Luxembourg Gardens and it is pleasant to strolling and picture taking even in Feb

Travelnut

Jardin de Luxembourg might be the most beautiful of all the parks and gardens in Paris - not sure how it will rank in February, though.

When you're in the 14th doing the Catacombs, you can make a walk like this:
From the Catacombs, go up ave du General Leclerc and turn left into rue Daguerre (nice market street). Go up rue Daguerre for about 4 blocks or so, then turn right on rue Gassendi and keep going into the Cimetiere de Montparnasse, and just sort of cross through it going toward blvd Edgar Quinet, toward the Tour Montparnasse.
Go up to the 56th enclosed lookout or the 59th outside lookout (8&euro for a great overview of Paris (including the Eiffel Tower).

This should take 2, maybe3, hours if you meander, stop for a coffee, etc., once you've left the Catacombs.

When you're in the 5th you should work these sites into your stroll:
- des Arenes (Roman arena remains)
- Roman ruins/baths at Cluny
- St Julien-le-Pauvre and Square Vivianne (oldest tree in Paris?)

tcreath

Definitely visit the Place de la Concorde and the Tuilleries garden on your way to the Louvre. We just got back from our first trip to Paris two days ago, and really enjoyed this area. The walk from Place de la Concorde to the Louvre was very pleasing and we enjoyed it very much. We walked from the Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs Elysses, through the garden to the Louvre. Long but great walk!

When in the Saint Germain area, you may want to check out Saint Germain des Pres church.

Tracy

ira

Hi Mas,

Your day in the 7th is a long one.

You might want to consider Sunday brunch at the Jacquemart-Andre museum, followed by a tour of the museum.

Then you can walk to the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs Elysee to the Louvre.

Indygirl2

Your groupings look good. While in the 5th, I would also recommend a trip to Musee de Cluny, if you like Medieval art. It's not a huge collection and the tapestries are worth the price of admission. If you like to stroll, I think you'll particularly like the 6eme and the Marais.

I think you might be surprised of how much ground you can cover in Paris in a single day. Central Paris is relatively compact. Granted, I like to walk, but I think it's relatively easy to see the major sites in just a few days. What takes time, in my opinion, is taking in all of the city's lovely and charming details. I really like most of the big sites, but they aren't what made me fall in love with the city.

I second the votes for Places des Vosges and Cluny. Also, while I like Montmarte, especially the area around Place des Abbesses, I might not make the trip unless I felt like I'd really exhausted the other areas. It's a bit of a trek. With that said, during my second trip to Paris, I went on a walking tour of Montmarte with Paris Walks that I enjoyed very much. It's not the easiest area to navigate by map so it was nice to a have a guide.

Have a great trip!

Kate

donco

Add Rodin Museum when you're near Invalides. It's not huge and grounds are pretty. My vote also for Luxembourg gardens-the palace may be open for a tour when you are there-you'd need advance reservation. Enjoy and please report!

bob_brown

The schedule you propose hinges on your knowledge of art and art history. I say that because devoting one whole day to the Louvre alone is usually a mistake, even for art lovers. I get saturated with it all after about 5 hours. There is something of a paradox involved in saying you are not big museum people and yet you schedule a whole day for a huge museum that will overwhelm you before the day is out.

Ditto for the day in the 7th arr. The Invalides is a huge military museum which can take a long time to see, or a relatively short time, depending on how well you like gazing at swords, muskets, dummies in uniform, WW I and WW II weapons of destruction. There are also Napoleon's stuffed horse and his stuffed dog in addition to the 7-casket tomb in which the Emperor rests.

With that assertion in mind, I am leading up to the big question: If not into museums, why are you going to the Louvre at all? If it is just to say that you have been the place, then my suggestion is to go in, look at Venus, Winged Victory, and Mona and then leave forthwith after about 90 minutes. Otherwise, you can be swallowed.

If you know a lot about the subject of art, then you could be there all day and then some. In fact, I plan to schedule 2 half days my next trip over. One solid day for me is too much of a good thing. I need a break in the middle.

The same is true of the Musee d'Orsay. Why are you going there? If the idea is to check off another item on the standard tourist list just to be able to say that you have been there and done that, I think you can be in and out in an hour. If you are going for the art, you could spend 4 hours or more.

It seems to me that you are leaving out quite a few other major objectives and leaving quite a bit of time for idle rambling. I do the same, because Paris is a city that unfolds itself as you go.
However, I would try to fill in the aimless potential with targets like the Luxembourg Gardens Place des Voges, and perhaps a couple of the other parks.

Granted Versailles is out from the city center, but given its prominence in French history, it is a major objective for many people. Fontainebleau is on the opposite side of the city, but the village is pleasant, and the building is an easy train and bus ride away. (Train to Fontainebleau Avon, city bus to the gate, and return the same way.)

In looking at what you omit, it appears that your objectives in Paris are far different from mine. Some of the smaller museums are better done, and much more interesting, than the larger ones. So perhaps I should not be commenting at all because I would be packing in as many musical performances as I could find, particularly one in Ste. Chapelle.

Robespierre

You might want to consider entering your pedestrian route at mappy.com to see what kind of hikes are involved.

For example, it takes well over an hour to walk from Étoile to the Louvre or from the Eiffel Tower to Notre Dame.

The antidote to sheer exhaustion is to use public transport; here is some information I hope you find useful:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34630342

MAS16

Great feedback so far - I appreciate it! Thanks for helping me fill in some of the blanks - that's exactly what I need.

And to bob_brown, to me, us not being hugely into museums and the fact that we are only planning on going to a couple in a city that is packed with them, makes perfect sense - we just want a taste and those are the ones we've chosen. We do not plan on spending an entire day at any of the museums I listed - which is what I said in my original post - that is not our schedule, just sites we'd like to see organized by district. To each his own. We're very laid back travellers; it's much more enjoyable for us that way.

MaureenB

I suggest you move the Musee d'Orsay visit into the same day you see the Louvre. It would be a full day, but they are an easy walk across the river from one another. Whereas the Eiffel Tower and Les Invalides/Napoleon are very close together, separated by the nice Champs de Mars parkway, which is a great place for a picnic between the two.
Have fun!

MaureenB

P.S. I forgot my standard recommendation to get a Batobus hop-on-hop-off multi-day pass. Especially to ride it on the Seine, in the evening once or twice (or more) to see the City of Lights. Lovely.

tuscanlifeedit

When Invalides is mentioned, I always forget that it is a huge military museum, and just think of the Napoleon's tomb building. I don't like military museums, but Napolean's tomb and the other tombs with it are great.

btewalt

I don't know if you like tours or not, but the tour offered at the Louvre is decent. I think it was around 11euro and lasted about an hour and a half. Got to see all the major things and by then, I was plenty done.

tuscanlifeedit

Having been lost in the Louvre twice, oh, how I wish I had taken that tour.

CU

The first thing you do when you set out to see the sights in Paris is to go on a tour of the city on the hop-on-hop-off bus.Do the full tour in one go and then you will have a general overview of the city and then you can retrace and visit where you like. The ticket is for two days.
Also get a tourist metro ticket-great value- I got one for four days and travelled all over the place. I planned my journey the night before and the line to travel on and off I went. Saw all the sights and more.
Enjoy.

schnauzer

I also like your groups so far. I did the same thing recently and it worked well, rather than zooming from place to place, keep the things to see in one area in one day. I would highly recommend the Rodin Museum, maybe split the 7th arr day into two separate days in order to see everything.

However, to add to the "not huge museum people" discussion I would suggest the Rodin museum over the Les Invalides if I had a choice. Les Invalides is a huge miliary museum with room after room of muskets, military uniforms etc yes of course there are the "key features" Napoleons Tomb etc.

I also second just wandering around Jardins Tullieres and the Jardin Luxembourg. don't forget the covered passages, of which there are plenty, if the days are rainy.

If you are interested click on my name and have a look at my report titled 20th Wedding Anniversary trip to Paris, Italian Lakes and Rome. This could help with how much one can see on one day in one area. phew!

RonZ

Regarding CU's post, google for L'Open Tour.

Robespierre posted a self-guided city bus tour a while back and I offered another version on that subject.

donco

One caveat about the hop on/off tour bus. We had to wait a long time at Notre Dame area when we used it. We were too tired to walk and didn't have any reservations to worry about so we waited, but it was a real time eater at that one stop. It was around 5 so expect many folks were going back to rooms at one time. Just something to keep in mind.