3 Days in Paris

The day opens with the smell of freshly ground beans and warm croissants as the Seine glints just beyond the window—your first quiet negotiation with Parisian time. From there, the city widens: the Louvre’s marble corridors and glass pyramid catch the morning light, footsteps echoing off centuries of art while outside, the geometry of the Tuileries offers a softer exhale. Lunch pulls you into a classic dining room where Burgundy recipes are treated like scripture, red wine catching the light against old stone. Afternoon is for walking the historic center with a guide who reads the streets like a palimpsest, pointing out how the 1st and 4th arrondissements evolved from medieval tangle to the ordered city Lonely Planet keeps mapping in arrondissement guides. By dinner, you’re deep in Saint-Germain, spooning into onion soup and confit in a room that smells of butter and history. The night ends with cocktails under the Ritz’s chandeliers, where the clink of crystal and the feel of velvet upholstery hint at tomorrow’s more contemporary take on Parisian grandeur.

Today smells like strong coffee and rain on stone as you cross the 7th arrondissement toward the former train station that now holds Paris’ 19th- and 20th-century heart. The Musée d’Orsay’s iron ribs and giant clock windows flood the Impressionists with a particular kind of light—soft, northern, generous—while the sound of school groups and audio guides becomes a distant hum. Lunch is Basque and boisterous, plates arriving with a certain swagger at L’Ami Jean, the air heavy with roasted meats and reduced sauces. Afternoon bends toward the Champ de Mars and the city’s most photographed lattice of iron, but you take it from the grass, from the river, from the Trocadéro—exactly as the photo guides suggest, finding angles that feel new. Dinner at Restaurant Guy Savoy turns the Seine into a dark ribbon outside the window, while inside every course feels like a thesis on texture and temperature. You end on the Champ de Mars again, the Eiffel Tower sparkling on the hour, already thinking about tomorrow’s more introspective gardens and chapels.

Your last day begins in the Marais with the smell of coffee and fresh bread, the streets still damp from overnight cleaning, and shutters just beginning to lift. From there, Paris’s history compresses: the Carnavalet Museum lays out the city’s revolutions and reinventions room by room, while a short walk away, Sainte-Chapelle’s stained glass turns late-morning light into a kaleidoscope that washes over stone and skin alike. Lunch is in a small dining room where duck confit and good wine do their quiet work, the clink of glasses and low laughter echoing off raw-stone walls. Afternoon takes you underground into the Archaeological Crypt beneath Notre-Dame, where the air is cool and smells faintly of dust and old stone, and then back up into the Luxembourg Gardens, where chairs scrape gravel and kids push toy sailboats across the pond. You end on the Left Bank again, in a bar-restaurant where the lights are low, the playlist leans French and soulful, and the city outside feels like a film you’ve finally learned how to watch.