Day trip in Paris - arriving at Paris Gare du Nord and visiting city center

(google for precise direction)

My 2 centimes.

1. Walk as much as possible, use the subway for your return trip at the end of the day (when you are most tired)

2. Museum visiting can eat up a lot of time; IMO, skip, unless there is a "temporary" exhibit you want to see.

3. Coffee, most café will have "regular" coffee (espresso, café au lait...), not drip coffee. (if wanting 3rd wave coffee in Paris, google for that); remember that if you order at the bar, you drink it at the bar, do not go sit at an empty table; if seating down at a table, then it will be a little more expensive (counter and table prices are displayed).

4. Shopping: Prices are displayed the store front windows, so no need to enter; when entering a store, say "Bonjour" to the staff, and when leaving the store say "Merci, Au revoir"

5. Eating: the better restaurants need reservations; are you looking for something specific ? (french food, wine...) too many options to help you with that, especially for a 1 day trip.

Walking down-hill-ish from La Gare du Nord to Le Louvre should take about 45 minutes (without stopping)

Two parallel routes: Via "Rue Vivienne" (and in the Passage Vivienne) and in the Palais Royal gardens.

or

Via "Rue du Faubourg Poissonière" is very nice and will pass by a lot of café and tons of stores/shops. (1)

You should be able to do it in about 1 hour (max) if stopping for coffee or lunch.

If really wanting to go to the Musée du Louvre, you should plan ahead for a specific section of the museum you want to see, because it is BIG and CROWDED. (pro tip: buy ticket in advance).

After the museum, you can walk in the Jardin des Tuileries towards Place de la Concorde, and the Grand and Petit Palais, and after looking arounf, walk up Rue Royale towards La Madeleine (church) and the Palais Garnier (old opera, now ballet house); then you can take Rue La Fayette back to the Gare du Nord.

(1) google map link: https://goo.gl/maps/dFATEtpKe3S2

Have fun,

Max.

Paris is for those who love to walk! But, I got pretty tired navigating through Gare Du Nord itself, so it wouldn't hurt to use Metro.

• A single metro ticket costs 1.80 Euro. It would be cheaper if you buy a 10 bundle (carnet, pronounced "car - ney").
• You have 90 minutes to transfer.

As for a route, this is purely based on my experience and preference, so adjsut to your liking.

• Take metro to to Anvers station, you will be in Sacré-Cœur.
• Climb up, take a nice view, and exit from the other way. There are several nice restaurants and coffee shops.
• Moulin Rouge
• Walk your way towards South East, and you can actually walk to the Louvre.
• It took me two whole days for Louvre, and I'm not even a museum guy. It's just a huge museum with something interesting for anyone. Expect to spend at least a couple hours there.
• Pont Des Arts.
• Notre-Dame de Paris
• Walk along the river, looking at the beautiful Eiffel tower.
• Eiffel Tower.
• You can then walk to Arc De Triomph.
• There are several brand shopping stores along the way to shop. Beware of pickpockets though. I lost mine.

You can also visit Montparnasse tower, Pont De Bercy nearby.

My advice is to not take it take hard. I spent most of my stay walking, and the route I took didn't really matter, even though I enjoyed the 8th, 9th, 15th, 18th and 19th arrondiss*m*nt more

Rather than giving you specific advice for Paris (which would make this more of an itinerary-constructing answer), I'll suggest some general techniques for unfamiliar city navigation.

For a large city like Paris, a good way to locate centres of activity would be metro stations. You can see these on Google Maps with the blue M in a circle. If you follow those, whether you follow the actual metro routes or hop from one to the next, you will almost certainly find interesting things.

If you zoom in far enough on Google Maps, you can see the names of individual businesses, often with additional information such as opening hours, photos, and even user reviews.

Another tool is Google Street View, where you can view street level detail from any vantage point. This is a very detailed tool that might not be suitable for route planning, but is useful for finding the exact location of a particular shop.

For Paris in particular, there is enough activity and variety of shops that if you simply want to wander around, you'll almost certainly find enough things to keep yourself busy.