Champs-Élysées
Plaza Athénée
For the couture houses: on Avenue Montaigne itself, with the Dior Spa, and connecting rooms for a family.
Paris guide
Luxury travel guide to Paris
How to choose a Paris stay: the nights, the quarter, the hotel and the month.
By Ramin Jafari · Facts checked
At a glance
- How long
- Four or five nights; a day more for Versailles, Giverny or Champagne
- Best months
- May and June, and September and October
- Getting there
- Fly to Charles de Gaulle or Orly, or Eurostar from London in 2¼ hours
- Getting around
- On foot within a quarter, a driver or a short ride between them
- Where to base
- By the Louvre, in Saint-Germain, or on the Champs-Élysées side
Which stay
Which kind of stay
Four ways to shape the days, depending on who is travelling and whether it is a first visit.
A first visit. The Louvre or the Orsay in the morning, one quarter on foot in the afternoon, the Eiffel Tower at dusk and the Seine by boat one evening; Notre-Dame and the island on another morning, and a whole day at Versailles. Four nights do it; five leave room for the Marais or Montmartre.
A return visit. Skip the Louvre, or go for one wing. Give the mornings to the Sainte-Chapelle and the Conciergerie, the Rodin, the Marais’s two mansion museums and Montmartre before it fills, and spend a day out at Giverny or among the Champagne houses.
With children. The Eiffel Tower, the river by boat and the Luxembourg’s twenty-one hectares of garden carry a day between them; at Versailles the gardens and Marie-Antoinette’s Hamlet hold attention longer than the State Apartments, and a pastry class is an afternoon everyone agrees on. One museum, chosen together, is enough.
A gentler pace. Stay in Saint-Germain, where the cafés are the point; take the Orangerie and the Rodin’s garden rather than the two great museums; keep a driver for Montmartre and the days out, and leave one afternoon unplanned for the quarter you liked best.
The quarters
The city by quarter
Choose the quarter before the hotel. Six quarters a first visit is made of, each with what it is best for and what you give up by basing there; the map shows them with the monuments.
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
The Champs-Élysées and Avenue Montaigne
More landmarks (11)
The Louvre
Musée d'Orsay
Palais Garnier
Eiffel Tower
Arc de Triomphe
Notre-Dame
Musée de l'Orangerie
Musée Rodin
Sacré-Cœur
Place des Vosges
Jardin du Luxembourg
The Right Bank, 1st arrondissement
The Louvre and the Tuileries
Best for the museums and the river on foot: the Louvre, the Tuileries and the Orangerie in a line, the Orsay across one bridge, the Île de la Cité along the quay, and the Palais Garnier a short walk north. The trade-off: a quarter of monuments and shops that is quiet after dark; the evening is a walk or a short ride away. Cheval Blanc Paris stands on the quay beside the Louvre, and the Ritz Paris on Place Vendôme.
The islands, 1st and 4th arrondissements
Notre-Dame from the Left Bank The Île de la Cité
Best for a morning, not a base: Notre-Dame, the Sainte-Chapelle and the Conciergerie within a few hundred metres, then the quieter Île Saint-Louis for the walk off. The trade-off: the island is the city’s busiest ground by mid-morning, so it is the first thing of the day or nothing; the Marais and the Left Bank are each a bridge away.
The Left Bank, 6th arrondissement
The Luxembourg garden Saint-Germain-des-Prés
Best for a slower stay: cafés, galleries and bookshops around the old abbey church, the Luxembourg garden to the south, and the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée Rodin at its western edge. The trade-off: none of our featured hotels is here; the smaller Left Bank houses we arrange on request are, and the Louvre is a walk across the river or a short ride.
The Right Bank, 3rd and 4th arrondissements
The Place des Vosges Le Marais
Best for walking without a plan: the Place des Vosges, the mansions’ courtyards, two small museums and the city’s best concentration of small shops and galleries, with dinner nearby. The trade-off: it is east of the museums, so a day based here is a day of walking or short rides; best as an afternoon and evening from a hotel further west.
The Right Bank, 8th arrondissement
The Arc de Triomphe, early morning The Champs-Élysées and Avenue Montaigne
Best for the grand hotels, the couture houses of Avenue Montaigne and the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, and the Arc de Triomphe at the top of the avenue. The trade-off: this is the quarter of hotels rather than of sights; the Louvre, the islands and the Left Bank are a short drive, not a walk. Three of ours are here: the Four Seasons Hotel George V and the Hôtel Plaza Athénée between the avenue and the river, and Le Bristol Paris on the Faubourg Saint-Honoré to the east.
The hill, 18th arrondissement
Montmartre
Best for an early morning: the Sacré-Cœur and the village streets below it before the day’s visitors arrive. The trade-off: it is the one quarter outside the centre, so it costs a ride each way; go up with a driver, walk down, and be back on the river by lunch rather than basing here.
When to go
May and June, and September and October, are the months we recommend. These are the weeks that fill the hotels and the tables, and the year in figures.
Our Paris page describes the four seasons. What it does not list are the dates to plan around: the hotels and the tables go earliest in these weeks, and we book around them with you.
- Paris Fashion Week, the ready-to-wear shows, four times a year: menswear from 19 to 24 January and from 22 to 27 June 2027; womenswear from 1 to 9 March and from 27 September to 5 October 2027.
- Haute Couture Week, twice a year and distinct from the above: 25 to 28 January and 5 to 8 July 2027.
- Roland-Garros, 17 May to 6 June 2027.
- The Fête de la Musique, 21 June, with music in the streets across the city.
- Bastille Day, 14 July: the parade down the Champs-Élysées.
- The European Heritage Days, the third weekend of September, when buildings normally shut to visitors open their doors.
- The Opéra’s season opens in September, at the Palais Garnier and the Bastille.
Rain falls on a week or more of days in every month, so a Paris plan always has an indoor afternoon in it; the difference between the seasons is warmth and light, not dryness.
Where to stay
Where to stay in Paris
Three of the five hotels we feature, one for each way of staying; all five are compared on the Paris accommodation page.
Place Vendôme
Ritz Paris
For the classic grand hotel: Place Vendôme, tea in a panelled salon, the Bar Hemingway, a pool and a French garden.
Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois
Cheval Blanc Paris
For the old city on foot: a contemporary Palace on the Seine at La Samaritaine, the Louvre a short walk, a 30-metre pool.
These three are a selection from the five hotels we feature, all of them on the Right Bank; the trade-off between them is distance — the river and the Louvre at your door, or the avenues and the couture houses with the museums a short drive away. Our Paris accommodation overview sets all five side by side, quarter by quarter and in one comparison, with the map. Hotels on the Left Bank, in the Marais and elsewhere in the city we arrange on request, matched to how you like to stay.
The table
A short range we can vouch for, from the bakery to the three-star dining room, and what we reserve.
Paris eats at every level, and a good stay moves between them. Among the tables we know and reserve:
- For a brasserie evening: Bofinger, between the Bastille and the Place des Vosges, for the great seafood counter, choucroute and the Alsatian classics.
- For a bistro lunch: Allard, a Saint-Germain bistro since 1932 and now part of Alain Ducasse’s house, for its roast Challans duckling with green olives.
- For pastry: Pierre Hermé on the Rue Bonaparte, for the macarons and the Ispahan of rose, raspberry and lychee.
- For bread: Poilâne on the Rue du Cherche-Midi, baking its sourdough miche in a wood-fired oven since 1932.
- For the great tables: Kei Kobayashi’s Kei, in the 1st, with three MICHELIN Stars in the 2026 guide, and L’Ambroisie on the Place des Vosges, with two.
The hotels’ own dining rooms are described on their pages. The market morning, the cooking and pastry classes and the wine and cheese with a sommelier are among the experiences on our Paris page; we reserve the tables with the rest of your days.
Paris guides
- Things to do in Paris
The Louvre and the Orsay, the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame, the quarters on foot, and Versailles, Giverny and Champagne.
Planning more of France? Our France page covers the rest of the country, Provence and the Riviera among it.
Plan your Paris trip
Tell us your dates and who is travelling. Everything else we can work out together.
Plan your Paris tripOur Paris page
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