Millions of people from all over the world come to see what Paris has to offer. It’s the center of the world, and there’s no avoiding it or getting around it. Paris ranks first in the world for tourism. It’s a city of monuments so powerful that they force visitors to keep looking around them wherever they go.
It’s a magnetic city where time seems to stand still. A city so full of life that it keeps pulling us back, again and again. It has pulled me back countless times, and over those visits I’ve been exposed to most of its treasures and secrets. Pure happiness, a kind of therapy, an uplifting of the spirit: that’s what I feel every time I land in Paris.
I walk around with my head in the clouds, and almost every spot seems more beautiful and interesting than the last. So the task the editor of Francophiles Anonymous gave me, naming just 10 recommended places in Paris, is really an impossible mission. Or, if you like, it’s practically an illegal request.
So how do you pick just ten recommended places in Paris?
Still, there’s something very appealing about turning an impossible task into a manageable one. But how do you actually do it? How do you pull a top-ten list out of hundreds of amazing sites and places? How do you make sure that two days from now you won’t be kicking yourself over some beloved, breathtaking spot that didn’t make the final cut?
Well, to ease that inevitable pang of guilt, I’ll use a kind of “leave it out but still mention it” method. I’ll start by naming my second and third tens. Those are places that didn’t make it to the top of my personal list, but that are still very close to my heart.
In spots 21-30 (the internal order is random) we have: Musée d’Orsay, the bouquinistes, the Centre Pompidou, the covered passages, Île Saint-Louis, the Crazy Horse cabaret, the flower park in the Bois de Vincennes, Square du Vert-Galant, Notre-Dame Cathedral, and the Tuileries Garden.
In spots 11-20 (again, the order is random): Parc Monceau, Rue Mouffetard, the Palais Garnier, Parc de Bagatelle, the Louvre Museum, the observation terrace at the Trocadéro, Place du Tertre, Village de Bercy, the Hôtel de Ville, and the Champs-Élysées.
And now for the top ten. I built the list this way: one neighborhood, one leisure and recreation site, one restaurant, one spectacular viewpoint, one bridge, one river, one lake, one garden, one museum, and one park. Here too there’s no internal ranking among the sites, but I’ll say this much: when people ask me what my single favorite place in Paris is, the answer is unequivocal: the Luxembourg Gardens. It’s the place where I’ve spent the most time out of all the wonderful sites in the city, and it’s probably the only one I’ve never skipped on any of my dozens of trips to Paris.
The Luxembourg Gardens:
Paris’s favorite place to walk and unwind. This wonderful, sprawling garden covers 57 acres and sits right in the heart of the city at the top of Boulevard Saint-Michel. It holds a special place in the hearts of Parisians and visitors alike. Countless artists, poets, writers, and philosophers have paid tribute to this enchanting place.
Naturally, the garden is always full of people, and it seems like the Luxembourg Gardens is missing nothing: a large ornamental pond where children sail little toy sailboats, a 17th-century palace that today houses the French Senate, a museum with rotating exhibitions, the Medici Fountain, lawns, statues, pony rides for kids, chess tables for enthusiasts, tennis courts and pétanque courts, and of course towering trees planted in neat rows and flowers in dazzling colors.
Want to explore the Luxembourg Gardens without missing a single interesting statue or story? Check out this walking route.
Musée Rodin:
Musée Rodin holds the major works of France’s greatest sculptor of all time, works that Rodin himself bequeathed to the French nation. It’s a must for anyone who loves sculpture. The museum is housed in the Hôtel Biron, an elegant 18th-century mansion where Rodin lived and worked, surrounded by a large garden where some of his pieces are displayed.
Among them: “The Thinker,” which became world-famous, “The Burghers of Calais,” and “The Gates of Hell.” The magnificent garden also holds an impressive collection of thousands of rose bushes. You can get there via the VARENNES metro station, named after the street where the museum sits, at No. 77. Hours: 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Closed on Mondays.
Buying tickets for Musée Rodin
Where the Seine splits:
The Seine is breathtaking along its entire length. It’s one of the most beautiful and well-tended rivers in Europe. At two points, where the river wraps around the islands of Paris, it splits into two arms, and there it becomes especially magical and romantic. At the Square du Vert-Galant beneath the Pont Neuf, at the tip of the Île de la Cité, you get a wonderful view of the Louvre Museum and its surroundings. On the other side, at the shaded eastern tip of the Île Saint-Louis, in a particularly green spot called Square Barye, you’ll also find plenty of romance and couples in love, and a beautiful view of the river and its surroundings, including the back of Notre-Dame, which rises close by.
Parc des Buttes-Chaumont:
One of the most beautiful and unusual gardens in Paris sits in the 19th arrondissement. It’s called PARC DES BUTTES CHAUMONT. It has every element a great garden needs: artificial hills and valleys, a large lake, suspension bridges, a grotto, a spectacular waterfall, a cliff topped with a temple in ancient Roman style, and plenty of greenery and water. Don’t skip the giant waterfall inside the grotto at the foot of the Roman temple. It’s a bit tricky to find: just follow the sound of rushing water. It’s simply a small, lovely slice of paradise. Metro station: BUTTES CHAUMONT or BOTZARIS.
If you want to read more about the park, check out the article Parc des Buttes-Chaumont: from garbage dump to wonderland.
Saint-Germain:
If I lived in Paris, I’d want to live in Saint-Germain. It’s my favorite neighborhood in the whole city: intimate, quiet, beautiful, romantic, and steeped in history. It’s a classic slice of the Left Bank. It’s enough to mention a few of the places and streets that make it so appealing: Boulevard Saint-Germain, the Église Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the Odéon, Musée d’Orsay, the old cafés where the intellectuals used to gather, Place de Furstemberg, and the Luxembourg Gardens.
Along RUE ST ANDRE DES ARTS, at numbers 59-61, you’ll find the Cour du Commerce Saint-André, lined with interesting restaurants and shops. At the end of the street sits a small, charming market called Rue de Buci, a favorite spot for local residents doing their morning shopping. Right alongside it is another attractive street, RUE JACOB, known for its small hotels, antique shops, dealers, publishing houses, and interior design studios. It continues into Rue du Bac, which ends at one of Paris’s oldest and grandest department stores: AU BON MARCHÉ. Not far from here sits the pleasant Place Saint-Sulpice, home to the beautiful Église Saint-Sulpice and Rue Bonaparte.
Pont Alexandre III:
Without a doubt the most beautiful bridge in Paris. It’s decorated with ornate gilded cherubs, elegant lampposts, and statues of nymphs and horses. The bridge stretches from the Grand Palais on the Right Bank, with a view toward the impressive Les Invalides on the Left Bank. The grandeur all around it makes the spot especially striking.
AQUABOULEVARD DE PARIS:
A huge complex dedicated entirely to leisure, sports, and recreation. It’s a spectacular place, largely unknown to tourists, and unlike anything else in Paris. You’ll find it at the last stop of metro line 8, at BALARD station. It’s a kind of thrilling country club with enormous, stunning swimming pools, some indoor and some outdoor, filled with countless attractions: islands, cafés, climbing posts, water currents, giant slides, bubble baths, a wave machine, and more. There are also gyms, and even a helicopter landing pad. In short, it’s the nicest country club you’ve ever seen.
One of the perks of this “overflowing with wellness” place is that tourists haven’t discovered it yet. If you don’t feel like swimming, you don’t even need an admission ticket: just take the escalator to the second floor and stroll through the corridors between the shops, movie theaters, restaurants, and cafés, with a stunning view of the pools on your right.
The view from the steps of the Sacré-Cœur:
If someone asked me to choose the very first view of Paris they should see, I’d take them, after dark, to two viewpoints: one from the steps of the Sacré-Cœur, and the other from the Trocadéro, on the plaza by the Palais de Chaillot.
Rumor has it that a young man once bought his mother-in-law, whom he wasn’t exactly fond of, a plane ticket to Paris because he’d heard there was a “breathtaking view” there. Well, if there are places that truly deserve to be called “breathtaking,” these two are it: the Sacré-Cœur and the Trocadéro. It was hard for me to pick between them, but in the end I decided to include the view from the steps of the Sacré-Cœur on this list. It’s a truly stunning vantage point.
The plaza is always packed with people of every kind and every age. The view is gorgeous, and the atmosphere is special. At sunset and twilight, you get stunning panoramic views of the city from up there. Once you’ve finished squeezing past the crowds filling the place, go inside the beautiful basilica, then head over to Place du Tertre, the nearby square of artists, and wander the narrow lanes of the enchanting Montmartre neighborhood.
The lakes of the Bois de Boulogne:
“I shall not describe the Bois de Boulogne. I cannot. It is simply a beautiful spread of grounds, kept with wonderful taste, and infinite and marvelous,” Mark Twain wrote, and I agree with him. In my view, the best part of the forest is its two wonderful lakes: Lac Supérieur and Lac Inférieur. You can take a boat ride on the lakes, or simply sit by the water and take in the scenery and the calm atmosphere. Just be sure to go during daylight hours, since the area around the forest gets a bit sketchy at night.
FLUNCH restaurant
Even though Paris is the culinary capital of the world, here I’m actually going to recommend a simple, affordable spot. If you’re not looking for gourmet food or unique French dishes, this is a place you can eat at again and again, enjoying a huge variety of dishes from a wide, ever-changing menu that promises fresh, cheap food.
The restaurant is called FLUNCH, and it sits across from the north side of the Centre Pompidou, at the entrance to the Quartier de l’Horloge, at 21 Rue de Beaubourg on the corner of Rue Rambuteau (there’s another branch near Place de Clichy at 1 Rue Caulaincourt). It’s a self-service “workers’ restaurant” with excellent grilled meats, a huge range of main courses of every kind, food cooked for the crowds, and a big selection of starters and desserts: salads, cakes, cheeses, and more. The huge variety of dishes draws crowds who come for cheap, tasty, fast meals. For example, you can order a steak or a burger off the grill and get free access to a giant bar of hot side dishes, all for under 10 euros. Worth it.
Looking for more recommended places in Paris? Here are a few more tips from the Francophile
- If you enjoyed Yoel’s article and you’re looking for personal, very subjective tips from objective francophiles, I highly recommend the article about Sassi Keshet’s favorite places in Paris.
- If you’re specifically looking for food markets in Paris, I highly recommend this article.
- If you’re looking for even more tips for the City of Light, I strongly suggest checking out the Paris page on the site.
- And one last tip: if you enjoyed what Yoel Thamanlis wrote, you’re welcome to read more of his articles here, or visit his Facebook page, Paris Through the Zoom, for even more stunning photos of the City of Light.
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