Paris in 3 days: the islands, the Louvre and Montmartre

Three days in Paris divide along the river: the two islands and the Marais on day one, the Louvre and the long axis west to the Arc de Triomphe on day two, the Left Bank museums, the Eiffel Tower and Montmartre on day three. Each day is walked from its first stop, with the metro for the jumps. The Paris travel guide has the background on the city, and the France guide shows how it connects to the rest of the country by train.

Two bookings fix the mornings. The Sainte-Chapelle and the Louvre both admit visitors by time slot, and each opens at 9:00; take the first slot at both and the afternoons stay open. The Musée d'Orsay starts day three at 9:30. Everything after lunch on all three days is a garden, a square or a monument that stays open into the evening.

The plan works from any central base. Where to stay in Paris compares five neighborhoods and their airport trains; from the Marais, line 1 reaches the start of day two without a change.

The Sainte-Chapelle is a 13th-century royal chapel on the Île de la Cité whose upper level is walled almost entirely in stained glass. It opens at 9:00, and Cité station on metro line 4 is the stop for it. Book the first slot: the monument asks you to arrive strictly at the time on your booking and not before it. From October to March it closes at 17:00, with last access half an hour earlier.

Prices and hours are on the monument's practical information page. Entry is also free for EU nationals aged 18 to 25, and for everyone on the first Sunday of January, February, March, November and December.

Notre-Dame is a few minutes' walk east across the island. The cathedral runs its own entry, so look at its site for the day's visiting hours before you go. The towers are a separate visit, managed by the national monuments agency: €16, by e-ticket for a time slot only, with no sales on site. The towers page gives the hours as 9:00 to 17:30 from October to March and until 23:00 from April to September, and limits time at the very top to five minutes.

Behind the cathedral a footbridge leads to the Île Saint-Louis, the smaller and quieter of the two islands, which is a good place for lunch. Cross from there to the Right Bank at the Hôtel de Ville, the city hall, and walk east into the lanes of the Marais. Place des Vosges, an arcaded square with a garden in the middle, is the end of the walk. Stay in the Marais for dinner, or continue a few streets east to the bistros around Bastille.

Take the 9:00 slot at the Louvre. Palais Royal - Musée du Louvre station is on lines 1 and 7. Decide before you go in which collections you want, and treat the visit as one continuous stretch: the museum states that any exit is final. Plan on about three hours for two or three departments.

The rates are on the museum's hours and admission page, and slots are sold on ticket.louvre.fr. Buy there. The museum warns of a rise in mirror sites, tells visitors not to buy tickets that claim to jump the queue or tickets from street sellers, and says holders of such tickets may be refused entry. It is also free for everyone on the first Friday of the month after 18:00, except in July and August, with a booked ticket.

Come out for a late lunch. The garden of the Palais-Royal is across Rue de Rivoli to the north, enclosed by arcades. Then walk west through the Tuileries Garden, which is free and belongs to the Louvre; it stays open until 21:00 in April, May, September and October, until 23:00 from June to August and until 19:30 in the winter months. The garden ends at Place de la Concorde.

From Concorde, line 1 runs to Charles de Gaulle - Étoile, under the Arc de Triomphe; on a fine afternoon, walk up the Champs-Élysées instead. Go up the arch toward sunset. It is 284 steps to the terrace, with an elevator reserved for visitors who need it, and the view runs back down the avenue to the Louvre.

See the arch's practical information page. Access to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at its foot is free.

The Musée d'Orsay holds the national collection of Impressionist painting in a former railway station on the Left Bank. The Paris tourist office lists it as open from Tuesday to Sunday, 9:30 to 18:00, until 21:45 on Thursdays, and closed on Mondays. Buy the ticket on the museum's own ticket office, billetterie.musee-orsay.fr, which shows current prices and time slots; the museum warns there that fake booking sites exist. Solférino on line 12 and Musée d'Orsay on RER C are the two stations.

RER C continues from the museum's station to Champ de Mars Tour Eiffel. Walk onto the Champ de Mars, the lawn that runs up to the tower, and then cross the river to the Trocadéro gardens, where the terrace faces the tower head-on. This plan treats the Eiffel Tower as something to look at and takes its views from above at the Arc de Triomphe and at Montmartre. If you want to go up, check prices and buy a timed ticket on the tower's own site, toureiffel.paris, before you travel.

Trocadéro station is on lines 6 and 9. Take line 6 to Charles de Gaulle - Étoile and change to line 2 for Anvers, at the foot of Montmartre. The Sacré-Cœur stands at the top of the hill, and the terrace in front of it looks south over the whole city.

Hours are on the basilica's hours and directions page. It says visitors may wait 10 to 15 minutes to enter between 10:30 and 17:00, so an arrival after 17:00 is the easy one. Place du Tertre, the square of portrait painters, is beside the basilica, and the streets downhill toward Abbesses are where to have dinner. Line 12 from Abbesses runs back to Concorde.

Monday and Tuesday decide the order. The Louvre is closed on Tuesdays, and the Musée d'Orsay on Mondays. Nothing on day one has a weekly closing day: the Sainte-Chapelle shuts only on 1 January, 1 May and 25 December.

So day one takes whichever of the two falls in your trip. For a Friday-to-Sunday trip, any order works; putting day two on the Friday gives you the Louvre until 21:00. For Saturday to Monday, run day two, day three, then the islands on Monday. For Sunday to Tuesday, do Orsay and Montmartre on Sunday, the Louvre on Monday and the islands on Tuesday. If Versailles is your fourth day, keep it off Monday as well.

Book in this order: the Louvre, the Sainte-Chapelle, then Orsay. The Louvre sells tickets on site only when attendance is low and subject to availability, so the online slot is the one to count on, free tickets included. The Sainte-Chapelle works by time slot. The Arc de Triomphe can wait until the day, and the Sacré-Cœur needs no ticket. Which European attractions sell out has the wording each owner uses about availability.

A visitor from outside the European Economic Area pays €70 for the three sights priced above from October to March: €22 at the Sainte-Chapelle, €32 at the Louvre and €16 at the Arc de Triomphe. From April to September the arch costs €22 except on Wednesdays, which makes €76. EEA residents pay €54 in winter (€16, €22 and €16). Orsay's ticket comes on top, at the price shown on its ticket office. Travelers under 18 enter the Louvre and the Sainte-Chapelle free, and EEA residents under 26 enter the Louvre free too.

With four paid museums and monuments, single tickets beat a pass. Are city passes worth it? puts the break-even for the four-day Paris Museum Pass at about five sights, and notes that a pass does not remove the booking step: the Notre-Dame towers, for one, require pass holders to reserve a slot like everyone else. The sum changes if you add Versailles and one more museum.

Rain moves the days more than it cancels anything. Day two is the wet-weather day, since the Louvre fills the morning indoors; in a downpour, skip the walk through the Tuileries and ride line 1 from Palais Royal - Musée du Louvre to the arch. Day one's walk through the Marais and day three's lawns and hilltop are the parts to keep for dry weather.

Late hours are how you handle heat and short winter afternoons alike. The Louvre is open until 21:00 on Wednesdays and Fridays, Orsay until 21:45 on Thursdays, the Arc de Triomphe until 22:30 in winter and 23:00 in summer, and the Sacré-Cœur until 22:30 every day. In July and August, spend the hot middle of the day inside a museum and walk the Tuileries, open until 23:00, in the evening. In winter, when the Sainte-Chapelle closes at 17:00 and the Sacré-Cœur dome at 17:30, put those two before lunch.

Travelers under 26 who live in the EEA should not buy a Louvre ticket, only book the free slot, and EU nationals aged 18 to 25 enter the Sainte-Chapelle free as well. For a family, under-18s cost nothing at either, which leaves the adults' tickets as the only cost of the first two mornings.

Stairs come up three times. The Arc de Triomphe has 284 steps and an elevator for those who need it, with no booking required. The Sacré-Cœur dome is 280 steps with no elevator, and the basilica asks people with mobility problems or a fear of confined spaces not to try it. The basilica itself has a step-free entrance at the back, at 35 rue du Chevalier de la Barre, open from 8:30 to 18:30. With two days, keep days one and two and add the walk from the Champ de Mars to the Trocadéro to the end of the second.

Versailles is the obvious fourth day. The palace opens at 9:00 and the Trianon estate at noon, both are closed on Mondays, and the palace requires a booked time slot. How to visit Versailles from Paris covers the RER C ride and Versailles tickets and timed entry the ticket types.

If a palace is not what you want, the Giverny day trip goes to Monet's house and garden, Fontainebleau is a château in a forest and Reims has the cathedral and the Champagne cellars. Versailles vs Fontainebleau vs Giverny compares three of them.

Metro and RER tickets are sold in digital form only: load them onto your phone or onto a Navigo Easy card. The one ticket that differs is the airport ticket. Paris Aéroport lists the Paris Region <> Airports ticket at €14 one way, valid on RER B to Charles de Gaulle and on metro line 14 to Orly, and says no other single ticket is accepted at the airport stations.

The fare is on Paris Aéroport's RER B page, and the advice on the UK government's France safety page. Set up an eSIM for Europe before you land, since the tickets in this plan are QR codes on a phone, and read EES explained if you are arriving from outside the EU.