Paul Bert Serpette
Saint-Ouen · Flea Market
The best section of the Marché aux Puces — Allée 1 and Allée 3 for serious antiques dealers. Saturday and Sunday mornings. Go early.
Paris · An honest guide · April 2025, updated August 2026
To Do
To do & see
Paris has been producing things worth looking at for several centuries. These are the experiences worth building your days around — beyond the obvious.
Canal Saint-Martin
10TH ARR · Neighborhood
Walk the canal on a Sunday morning when the roads are closed to cars. The locks, the iron footbridges, the cafés with their chairs out. The 10th and the 11th at their most Parisian.
Foldérol
11TH ARR · Wine & Ice Cream
Wine and ice cream in the 11th. The combination is correct. The natural wine list is serious and the ice cream is made in-house. Go in the late afternoon.
Palais de Tokyo
16TH ARR · Museum
The largest contemporary art museum in Europe. Open until midnight. No permanent collection — only temporary exhibitions. The Monsieur Bleu restaurant inside has one of the great Paris terraces.
Hôtel de la Marine
8TH ARR · Museum
The former royal furniture depository on Place de la Concorde, open since 2021. The 18th-century apartments are restored exactly. Free on the first Sunday of each month.
Fondation Cartier
14TH ARR · Museum
Jean Nouvel's building on the Boulevard Raspail is one of the finest pieces of contemporary architecture in Paris. The garden is public and worth sitting in.
Les Enfants du Marché
4TH ARR · Market
The covered market in the Marais — producers, wine merchants, cheese makers, prepared foods. The natural wine section is excellent. Saturday mornings.
Grand Rex
2ND ARR · Cinema
The largest cinema in Europe, opened 1932, Art Deco interior entirely intact. See anything, just to be in the room. The backstage tours are also worth an hour.
Saint-Roch
1ST ARR · Church
The church Louis XIV's architect designed where Corneille, Le Nôtre, and Diderot are buried. Napoleon fired grapeshot at Royalists from its steps in 1795. Quiet, uncrowded, extraordinary.
Day trip — Airelles Versailles
Versailles · Special Occasion
The only hotel inside the Palace of Versailles grounds — inside the Château de la Reine building. A completely different version of the palace. Book months ahead.
Day trip — L'Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay
Cernay-la-Ville · Country Escape
50km from Paris in the Chevreuse valley. A 12th-century Cistercian abbey converted into a hotel. The kind of escape that makes Paris feel like it is in another country.
Le Pavillon Nicolas Ruinart
REIMS · DAY TRIP
An hour from Paris by train, but worth it for anyone who takes Champagne seriously. The chalk cellars are extraordinary — forty metres underground, carved by monks — and the tasting that follows is the best argument for making the trip.