ParisTravel Guide

The areas and addresses our writers put first

• Mathias Reding

  Rue de Rivoli and Concorde

  Facing the Tuileries, Le Meurice has hosted royalty and eccentrics since the nineteenth century — Salvador Dalí famously treated it as a second home.

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• Ritz Paris - Place Vendome

  Paris

  The hotel that invented the mythology, and still trades on it more successfully than any of its rivals.

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• Hotel Plaza Athenee - Avenue Montaigne

  Paris

  Opened in 1913 on the couture avenue, and the red awnings with their geraniums are a fixture of Paris fashion photography.

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• Le Meurice - Rue de Rivoli

  Paris

  The oldest of the group, trading on the Rivoli frontage since the 1830s and facing the Tuileries across the street.

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• Place Vendôme and the 1st

  Paris

  The octagonal Place Vendôme is the spiritual center of Parisian luxury, and the Ritz Paris is its anchor — the hotel where Coco Chanel lived for decades and whose intimate bar is named for Ernest Hemingway, its most d…

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• The Golden Triangle

  Paris

  Between the Champs-Élysées and the Seine, the 8th arrondissement's famed triangle holds the Four Seasons George V, with its extravagant floral displays, and the Plaza Athénée on Avenue Montaigne, instantly recognizabl…

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The things that justify the trip

• Alireza Banijani

  Musée d'Orsay

  The Impressionists in a converted Beaux-Arts railway station — for many visitors, the best museum experience in the city.

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• Anna Hunko

  The Eiffel Tower after dark

  Seeing the tower by day is obligatory; seeing it sparkle is transcendent.

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• Bastien Nvs

  Montmartre at first light

  Climb toward Sacré-Cœur before the crowds arrive and the hilltop village still belongs to bakers and street sweepers.

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• János Szüdi

  Notre-Dame and the islands

  Reopened to visitors after its painstaking post-fire restoration, the cathedral anchors the Île de la Cité.

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• Valeria Kodra

  The Luxembourg Gardens

  This is where Paris slows down: sailboats on the pond, chess players under the chestnuts, green metal chairs angled toward the sun.

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Walks, tours and days out we would book again

• ian kelsall

  Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe

  Stroll the avenue for the spectacle, then climb the Arc de Triomphe for the best orientation lesson in Paris: twelve avenues wheeling out beneath you.

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• Slavan

  Île de la Cité

  Start at Notre-Dame, gloriously reopened after its restoration, then walk to Sainte-Chapelle for the wall of 13th-century stained glass — go early, when the light comes through.

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• Maryline Waldy

  Montmartre

  Climb (or funicular) to Sacré-Cœur before the crowds, then lose the main drag for the steep, villagey side streets and Place du Tertre's edges.

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• Big Dodzy

  Le Marais

  Cross the city to Paris's most atmospheric old quarter: Place des Vosges' perfect arcades, boutique streets, falafel stands and courtyard museums.

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• Tomas Anton Escobar

  A day at Versailles

  The palace is overwhelming by design; the gardens are the real masterpiece.

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• Saint-Germain-des-Prés

  Paris

  Apéritif at a storied café terrace, dinner nearby, and a night walk along the Seine's book-stall quays.

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• Le Marais on foot

  Paris

  Medieval lanes, the elegant Place des Vosges, falafel queues and independent boutiques.

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