Start here. Not at a museum, not at a monument — on a bench under the arcades of the oldest planned square in Paris. Get a coffee from one of the cafés lining the square, find a spot on the grass if it's open, and let your body arrive before your itinerary begins. The morning light through the brick and stone arcades is the first gift Paris gives you.

The streets around Rue des Francs-Bourgeois and Rue de Bretagne are best explored with no particular agenda. Vintage shops, galleries, the covered Marché des Enfants Rouges — the oldest food market in Paris, since 1615 — where you should stop for a Moroccan couscous plate or a crêpe if you're hungry. This is people-watching at its finest. Bring your time.

This is the museum we send everyone to and no one has heard of. Housed in two adjoining hôtels particuliers in the Marais, it's a collection about humanity's relationship with the animal world — and it's nothing like what that sounds like. The rooms are theatrical, the contemporary art is startling, and the whole experience is beautifully strange. Budget 90 minutes.

If you're the kind of traveler who wants to understand a city, not just photograph it, this is a profoundly important stop. A 20-minute walk from the hunting museum. Free entry. Give it the time it asks for.

Chez Janou is beloved for its Provençal cooking and legendary chocolate mousse — served from a communal bowl that arrives at your table like a dare. Reservations recommended. For something quieter, Breizh Café on Rue Vieille du Temple serves the best buckwheat galettes in the city with excellent hard cider. No reservations needed for the bar. After dinner, walk. The Marais at night is its own experience — softly lit, unhurried, and impossibly beautiful.

Yes, Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots are famous. Yes, they're tourist-adjacent. Go anyway — once. Order an espresso, sit outside, and understand why these places became what they became. The cane chairs, the brass fixtures, the parade of Parisians walking past — it's a performance, and you're in the audience. For something less staged, try Café de la Mairie on Place Saint-Sulpice — all the atmosphere, none of the markup.

This is not a park you rush through. Rent the iconic green metal chairs, position them wherever you want, and sit. Watch the children sail boats in the octagonal basin. Watch the joggers, the readers, the couples. Luxembourg is the living room of the Left Bank, and it's free.

This is the one Paris museum that never disappoints. The building alone — a converted Beaux-Arts railway station — is worth the visit. The Impressionist collection on the upper floor is staggering: Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Degas, all in natural light. Go after lunch when the morning crowds thin. If you only see one museum on this trip, make it this one.

A short walk east along the Seine from d'Orsay. The bookshop is a literary landmark worth stepping into even if you don't buy anything — though you will. Cross the bridge and you're in the Latin Quarter. Wander Rue de la Huchette and Rue Saint-Séverin. Avoid the tourist-trap Greek restaurants but soak in the medieval streetscape.

Polidor has been serving classic French cooking since 1845 — prix fixe, communal tables, the kind of place where the menu is a handwritten chalkboard and the blanquette de veau is transcendent. Cash only. For wine after, Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels has one of the best wine lists in the city in a candlelit stone cellar. Ask the sommelier to choose for you.

Start at the Tuileries — the formal garden stretching between the Louvre and Place de la Concorde. Walk it slowly. Then cross north to the Palais Royal, the most beautiful courtyard in Paris that nobody visits. Buren's black-and-white striped columns are a perfect photo moment. The surrounding arcades have tiny, extraordinary shops — antique music boxes, perfumers, a shop that sells nothing but hand-stitched gloves.

If you go — and it's not mandatory — go at opening, head straight to three things you actually want to see, and leave within two hours. The building itself is the masterpiece. Trying to "do" the Louvre ruins the Louvre. Our suggestion: Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Vermeer rooms, and the Apollo Gallery. Skip the Mona Lisa scrum unless it matters to you.

This is the afternoon where Paris gives you its most iconic scenery — and you take it all in on foot. From the Tuileries, walk along the Left Bank of the Seine. Cross Pont Alexandre III — the most beautiful bridge in Paris, gilded and absurd and wonderful. Continue to the Champ de Mars. You don't need to go up the tower. Stand at the Trocadéro esplanade across the river and see it whole. This is the view. This is the postcard. Let yourself have it.

Rue Cler is a pedestrian market street that feels like a village inside a city. Fromageries, patisseries, wine shops, flower stalls. Option one: buy provisions — cheese, baguette, Burgundy — and picnic on the Champ de Mars as the tower sparkles after dark (every hour on the hour). Option two: Le Petit Cler is a neighborhood gem — small, unpretentious, and exactly the kind of meal you'll remember. No reservations, arrive by 7:30pm.

The most famous cemetery in the world, and one of the most beautiful places in Paris. Oscar Wilde, Édith Piaf, Jim Morrison, Frédéric Chopin, Marcel Proust. But beyond the famous names, it's a sculpture garden, a forest, and a history of Paris carved in stone. Go early, get the map at the entrance, and wear good shoes — the cobbled paths wind and climb.

From the cemetery, head west to the Canal Saint-Martin — one of the most photogenic and genuinely local neighborhoods in Paris. Iron footbridges, tree-lined banks, locks that open periodically. Stop at Ten Belles or Café Craft for some of the best specialty coffee in the city, then walk the canal slowly. This is the Paris that Parisians actually live in.

The elevated park that inspired New York's High Line — built on a disused railway viaduct above the 12th arrondissement. Most visitors have never heard of it. You'll walk above the streets through trellised arches, flowering gardens, and green tunnels for nearly three miles. Below the viaduct, the Viaduc des Arts houses artisan workshops — violin makers, fabric restorers, silversmiths.

If you end the Promenade before it runs out, drop south to Marché d'Aligre — an outdoor market with an attached covered hall that's as local as it gets. Fruit, flowers, cheese, North African spices. The surrounding streets have excellent wine bars for a late-afternoon glass.

Le Servan offers inventive Franco-Asian cooking from a husband-and-wife team. Septime is harder to book but worth trying — one Michelin star, zero pretension. For something more casual, Le Baratin in Belleville is a wine bar with legendary cooking and exactly the kind of energy you'd want on your fourth night in Paris.

Montmartre before 9am belongs to you and the residents. Skip the Place du Tertre portrait artists and head for the vineyard on Rue des Saules, the pink house that was Utrillo's studio, and the back streets behind Sacré-Cœur where the cobblestones are uneven and the shutters are painted green. Sacré-Cœur itself is best from the steps outside — the view over all of Paris is extraordinary, especially in morning light.

Le Grenier à Pain won the Best Baguette in Paris competition — and the croissants are arguably even better. Get one of each, find a bench on the Montmartre steps, and eat breakfast watching the city wake up below you. This is one of those mornings you'll remember.

Beneath the elegant streets of the 14th lies the Paris most visitors never see. The Catacombs hold the remains of six million people, transferred from overcrowded cemeteries in the 18th century. The descent is 131 steps down a tight spiral staircase into silence. It is haunting, humbling, and one of the most unforgettable experiences in Europe.

After the Catacombs, surface into the quiet residential streets around Denfert-Rochereau. Walk south to Rue Daguerre, a pedestrian market street with excellent cheese shops and a pace that feels like a completely different city from the Marais.

Le Comptoir du Panthéon in the 5th is intimate and excellent — classic French cooking in a room that feels like a secret. Frenchie in the 2nd (book well ahead) is a modern Paris institution — creative tasting menus in a tiny stone-walled room. Or return to whichever neighborhood captured your heart this week and let the city choose for you. Walk past three restaurants. Sit down at the one with the best energy. Trust your instinct. You know Paris now.