Paris

In Paris, the Closing Days Decide the Itinerary

Paris is the one great museum city where the calendar is a hard constraint rather than a preference. The Louvre closes Tuesdays. The Orsay, the Rodin and the Picasso close Mondays. So does Versailles. Get that grid wrong on a four night trip and you have lost a quarter of it before you land, and no amount spent on the hotel repairs it. The second constraint is geography. The center is small enough to walk and dense enough that ten minutes in the wrong direction costs you an hour, so the arrondissement you sleep in shapes the week more than the hotel name does. Settle those two things first and the rest of the trip arranges itself.

Know before you go

• Fly into Paris Charles de Gaulle, code CDG, about 24 miles from the center and roughly 45 minutes door to door in normal conditions. The fixed taxi fare into town is about €60 for the Right Bank and €65 for the Left, all in for up to four passengers, and a private car starts around €140.
• Trip length Four or five nights. At three you are choosing between Versailles and a proper museum day rather than doing both, because the palace closes Mondays and runs on timed entry.
• Best months Mid May to mid September, and the best of that is mid May to mid June. Average highs run about 69°F in May, 75°F in June and 71°F in September. January is the low point at about 46°F.
• Entry No visa for a United States passport, 90 days in any 180 across the Schengen area. The passport must be valid at least three months beyond your intended departure from the Schengen area, and six months is the sensible margin. A United States twelve page emergency passport is not accepted for visa free entry to France.
• Biometric registration The EU Entry Exit System has been fully operational since 10 April 2026, and a facial image and fingerprints now replace the passport stamp. If Paris is your first stop in the zone you give them at Charles de Gaulle, where the queue is longest on the morning bank of transatlantic arrivals, so do not book lunch on landing day. ETIAS is not in operation, no applications are being collected and no start date has been announced.
• Money The euro, which trades a little above the dollar. Cards are taken almost everywhere, service is included on restaurant bills, and tipping beyond rounding up is a courtesy rather than an obligation.
• Getting around The Metro and your own feet. A car in the center is a liability with nowhere useful to park, and every major site sits on a Metro line.
• The closing days The Louvre closes Tuesdays. The Orsay, the Rodin and the Picasso close Mondays. The Orangerie closes Tuesdays. Versailles closes Mondays. Build the week around that grid before you book a single table.
• Pompidou is shut The Centre Pompidou closed completely on 22 September 2025 and is not due to reopen until 2030. Its collection has been dispersed to the Grand Palais and partner museums, with a new Centre Pompidou Francilien at Massy opening in spring 2027.
• Louvre pricing Admission is tiered by residency, €22 for EEA residents and €32 for everyone else, so a United States passport pays the higher rate and a family of four feels the difference. Under 18s go free. Tickets release about 90 days ahead on the museum’s own site, summer weekend morning slots go weeks out, and Wednesday and Friday run late to 21:00.
• Restaurant lead times Plénitude takes bookings nine to twelve months ahead. Le Jules Verne opens 90 days out. MoSuke and Mokonuts run two to three months. Septime opens exactly three weeks ahead at 10am and fills almost instantly.

The arrondissement you choose is the trip you get

The 1st and the 7th are the right answer for a first serious visit: central, calm at night, walkable to the Louvre, the Orsay, the Tuileries and the river without ever needing the Metro. Cheval Blanc sits above the Seine at Pont Neuf, the Ritz holds Place Vendôme a few streets away. The 6th is the classic Left Bank, softer and more residential, and it is where you stay if you want bookshops and small kitchens rather than a grand lobby. The 3rd and the 4th, the Marais, give you the best casual eating and the liveliest evenings, at the cost of noise and narrow streets. The 8th is the grand hotel district: Le Bristol with its garden and rooftop pool, the Peninsula near the Arc de Triomphe with unusually large entry level rooms. None of these are far from each other. Paris rewards staying central far more than it rewards saving on the room.

Sequence the museums, then book the tables

Work backwards from the closures. Fix the Versailles day first, since it cannot be a Monday and needs a timed slot, and take the earliest one so you are back in the city for a late lunch. Put the Louvre on a Wednesday or a Friday and go in the evening, when it runs to 21:00 and the sculpture courts empty out. That leaves Monday for the Marais, the department stores and walking, because the Orsay and the Rodin are shut anyway. Only then place the restaurants, working from the longest lead time down. The Pompidou is out of the equation until 2030, and the practical effect is that the Grand Palais now carries the major temporary shows, so check what is on there before you assume a modern art afternoon exists.

August is quieter than its reputation and emptier than you want

The received wisdom that the city shuts in August is half right. The major museums, the department stores and the brasseries in the visitor quarters all stay open and trade normally. What closes is the layer underneath: neighborhood bistros and bakeries in residential arrondissements take their annual holiday or shut for a refit, and no reliable published list exists of who and when. The practical rule is to telephone any specific restaurant before crossing the city for it. If your Paris is museums, shopping and the grand tables, August works and the rates are friendlier. If your Paris is a run of small kitchens found on foot, come in June or late September instead.

Planning brief

Two decisions carry this trip: the week you come and the arrondissement you sleep in. Everything else can be built around them.

• Best suited to: art and fashion travelers; couples on a city stay; serious eaters; repeat visitors working neighborhood by neighborhood.
• Decisions to settle early: museum closing days and the Versailles slot; Right Bank or Left; palace hotel character; restaurant lead times; whether a day trip belongs in the week at all.
• Arrival and routing: CDG on a fixed fare taxi or a private car; extra time at the border for biometric registration; onward rail from Montparnasse or Gare de Lyon rather than a second flight.

Start with the closing days, not the hotel

Paris is rarely the same trip twice, and the version that suits a first visit is not the one that suits a fifth. Send the month you are circling, the occasion behind it and what you want the week to feel like. Back comes the dates that actually work against the museum grid, the side of the river that suits you, and the short list of bookings that have to be made before anything else can be.

Champagne is an easy overnight from Paris, with Reims under an hour away by train. For a personal take on the city, read Mary Jo Shore's Paris guide, from Saint Germain to a blue hour walk along the Seine.

Our luxury leisure travel planning handles the hotel, the private guides, the museum timing and the trains as one itinerary, and Paris pairs cleanly with Bordeaux, which sits two hours and three minutes from Montparnasse on the TGV.

From the journal

More on Paris: Paris Is Always a Good Idea: Culture, Couture & Secrets of the City of Light.