How to Spend One Day in Paris

While by no means a small city, you can certainly catch the glimpses of Paris is just a day. That’s what we tried to do when scheduling a daylong layover in the city. We challenged ourselves to see how much of the beautiful city we could lay our eyes on. The answer turned out to be: quite a lot! We’ve got you covered with our updated and optimized itinerary for Paris in a day.

Once you get off your flight, try to make it out of the airport as quickly as possible and head towards the RER train station. Getting on the B line to the Saint-Michel Notre-Dame stop will take you a little over an hour, but it will be the best way for you to come to the city efficiently and cheaply. The train ride also is a nice way to see the landscapes of the outskirts of Paris.

Once you arrive in the city, you should see Notre-Dame from the outside as it is being repaired from its fire in 2019. It is located in an area of many cafes & boulangeries, so grab some breakfast and walk over to the Pantheon area to enjoy it. The mausoleum is a beautiful structure surrounded by the Sorbonne, Paris’ premier public university. With incredible buildings and a slight view of the city, it’s a fantastic place to enjoy your morning.

From there, since you only have a day in the city, you should  get lunch at the world famous L'as du Fallafel, which is just across the Seine. The line can be a bit long, so try to order from your phone if you can, getting their classic falafel wrap. It’ll be nice to have a good takeaway meal on your half-hour public bus ride to Montmartre.

Montmartre is the name of a large hill overlooking all of Paris that features a white-domed basilica that makes it a picturesque spot. It can get overrun by tourists so watch out for that, but it provides a quintessential view of Paris. Getting there will be the furthest you will have to travel on your day in the city.

After visiting Montmartre, take the M2 back to the city to check out the scenery of fountains and the glass pyramid outside of the Louvre. Unfortunately, you won’t have enough time in just a day to visit inside the museum, but the outside scenery is beautiful and filled with more people than you can imagine. Then, walk from the Louvre through the Tuileries Garden to arrive at the Concorde, a large public square centered by an Egyptian obelisk. This space will truly make you feel like you’re in the center of Paris.

Now to start to bring your whirlwind of a day to a close, you should walk from the Concorde straight to the Arc de Triomphe, the famous arch at the end of the Champs-Élysées. The hustle-and-bustle of the traffic made me feel like I was back in New York!

Stop by to grab a nice picnic spread and a bottle of wine, as you can take the M6 to the Eiffel Tower from the Arc de Triomphe to enjoy the nighttime view of the world’s most famous structure. Make sure to give yourself enough time to get back to the airport or to your hotel after spending some quality dinner time admiring the Eiffel Tower.

Next time, give yourself more than a day to see this amazing city. But know that you got a sneak peek of pretty much everything in one day!