Paris without the queues

Most bad Paris trips follow the same shape: too many landmarks, too little time between them, and one very expensive lunch near a monument. The city gets blamed for being cold and overpriced when really the itinerary was the problem.

The fix is simple. Pick two arrondissements a day and stay in them. The 11th and the 20th on one day, the 6th and the 5th on the next. You will walk less, spend less on transport, and eat considerably better, because you will end up in places that serve people who live there.

Book one dinner properly and leave the rest to chance. Paris is generous to people who wander at seven and firm with people who arrive at nine without a table. Lunch is where the value is: the same kitchens that charge fifty euros at night do a two-course formule for twenty at midday.

Bakeries are the exception to every rule. Queue for those. A twenty-minute wait for a good baguette tradition is a fair trade, and the queue itself is usually a reliable signal that you are in the right place.

Museums are worth planning around rather than planning your day on. Buy the timed ticket, go first thing or in the last two hours, and pick one per day. The Orangerie in the late afternoon beats the Louvre at any hour if you have less than three days.

Walk the canal in the evening. Saint-Martin on a warm night does more for your impression of Paris than anything with a ticket price. Bring a bottle from a caviste, sit on the edge, and watch the locks fill.

The last thing: build in nothing time. An hour in a café with a book is not a wasted hour in Paris, it is the point. The trips people remember are the ones with gaps in them.