Forty-four million people visit Paris every year. Most of them arrive in July. Most of them queue for three hours at the wrong entrance. Most of them leave believing the city is overpriced, overcrowded, and overrated. They are wrong. Paris is none of those things if you know how to do it. Here are ten attractions worth your time and the strategy that makes each one work.

1. The Eiffel Tower, from the right angle

Book the summit ticket: €28, 3-4 weeks ahead. The 9am slot is quietest. The view from the second floor at 115 metres is arguably better than the summit at 276 metres, where the buildings become toys. The restaurant on the first floor, Madame Brasserie by Thierry Marx, offers a lunch menu at €48. At night the 20,000 bulbs sparkle for five minutes on the hour from dusk to 1am. Watch from the Champ de Mars. Lie on the grass. It is free and better than being on the Tower itself.

2. The Louvre, the right entrance, the right time, three things

Skip the Pyramid. Use the Carrousel du Louvre entrance, the shopping centre, the inverted pyramid, straight into the museum with no queue. Enter at 3pm on a Wednesday or Friday. The museum stays open until 9pm. After 5pm the galleries are almost empty. See three things: the Mona Lisa in Room 711, get it over with. The Winged Victory of Samothrace on the Daru staircase, 2nd-century BCE, headless, wind-swept, the most dramatic sculpture in the museum. Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa from 1819, seven metres wide, shipwreck survivors, hope and horror. Then leave. The museum covers 72,735 square metres. Three things, properly savoured, beats 35,000 things glazed over.

3. Notre-Dame, resurrected

Reopened December 2024 after a five-year, €846 million restoration by 2,000 artisans. The spire, identical to Viollet-le-Duc’s 1859 design, oak from 2,000 French trees, is back. The 13th-century rose windows, in blues and reds no modern glazier has replicated, survived the fire. The organ runs to 8,000 pipes, cleaned and restored. Free entry. The queue is 45-90 minutes at peak. No pre-booking for general entry. The crowds are temporary. The cathedral is permanent.

4. Sacré-Coeur and the real Montmartre

The basilica, completed in 1919, dominates the skyline. climb the dome: 300 steps, €6, the second-best view in Paris. Then leave the Place du Tertre, the artists’ square is a tourist trap with charm, and walk the back streets. Rue de l’Abreuvoir, the cobbled lane with the pink house, is the most photographed street in Paris. The Clos Montmartre vineyard, the last working vineyard in the city, produces 1,500 bottles a year. The bust of Dalida in Place Dalida, people kiss it. Everyone does it. I do not know why.

5. Musée d’Orsay, the clock, the Impressionists, the station

The Gare d’Orsay was built for the 1900 Universal Exposition and converted to a museum in 1986. The giant clock face overlooking the Seine, the view through it of Sacré-Coeur in the distance, is the photograph everyone takes. Inside: Van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhône from 1888, the gaslights reflected in the water. Monet’s Water Lilies in the oval rooms, the blue, the green, the submersion. The top floor on the 5th catches the best natural light. Smaller than the Louvre. Manageable in a morning. More satisfying.

6. Sainte-Chapelle, the walls of light

On the Île de la Cité, inside the Palais de Justice, behind a security scanner, up a narrow spiral staircase. The upper chapel holds 15 stained-glass windows, each 15 metres high, 1,113 biblical scenes depicted. The oldest glass dates from the 13th century. The room is made of coloured light. Go on a sunny morning when the light through the south-facing windows transforms beautiful into transcendent. The conciergerie next door, Marie Antoinette’s cell, is the historical companion. Combined ticket €18.50.

7. The Catacombs, six million Parisians beneath your feet

The entrance on Place Denfert-Rochereau leads down 131 spiral steps. The temperature drops. The walls grow damp. The tunnels, 1.7 km open to the public out of 300 km beneath the city, were created when the cemeteries overflowed in the late 18th century. Six million Parisians were moved here between 1786 and 1814. Femurs and skulls are stacked in geometric patterns. The inscription above the entrance reads: “Arrête! C’est ici l’empire de la Mort.” Stop. This is the empire of Death. Book online: €29, timed entry, weeks ahead. The queue without a ticket is 2-3 hours. The Catacombs are genuinely unsettling and genuinely unforgettable.

8. The Pompidou Centre, inside out

Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers opened it in 1977 with the pipes and escalators on the outside. Colours are coded: blue for air, green for water, yellow for electricity, red for circulation. It closes for a five-year renovation in late 2025. See it before it goes dark. The Musée National d’Art Moderne inside is the largest modern art collection in Europe. The top-floor terrace offers the best free panorama in central Paris. The escalator ride up the outside of the building is the architectural experience. The ground-floor library is where Parisian students study. Radical architecture, priceless art, students doing homework, that is the Pompidou at its best.

9. Père Lachaise Cemetery, the city of the dead

Forty-four hectares, 70,000 graves, one million bodies. The most visited cemetery in the world. Jim Morrison’s grave has the bust stolen and the graffiti ongoing since 1971. Oscar Wilde’s Epstein tomb, a glass barrier now protects the stone from the kisses that were eroding it. Edith Piaf’s simple granite still gets flowers and singing. The Communards’ Wall, where 147 Communards were shot on 28 May 1871, is the most historically significant corner. Free. Buy the €2 map at the entrance. You will get lost without it. Getting lost in Père Lachaise is part of the experience.

10. The Seine at night, free, timeless, yours

Buy a bottle of wine, two plastic cups, and a baguette from a boulangerie. Walk to the quay near the Pont des Arts. Sit on the stone embankment with your feet dangling above the water. Watch the tour boats pass, the illuminated monuments, the bridges, the other people on the other embankments doing exactly the same thing. The Eiffel Tower sparks on the hour. The wine costs €8. The baguette costs €1.20. The view, the river, the city, the night, costs nothing. It is the best thing in Paris.

Which of these ten Paris attractions would you return to, and what is the one thing in Paris that you would add to this list?

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