Paris Bucket List | 101 Fun Things to Do in Paris

1. Take an elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower

2. Watch the Eiffel Tower light show from the Champ de Mars

3. Go on a tour of the Paris Opera House

4. Dance by the river with the locals at the Jardin Tino Rossi (watch a video below)

5. Watch street dancers at the Place du Trocadero or the Paris Opera Garnier steps

6. See Napoleon's tomb at Hotel des Invalides, and visit the military museum to see one of his (stuffed) horses

7. Attend a Paris fashion show at Galeries Lafayette or Hotel Le Bristol

8. Go to a reading or just browse for books at Shakespeare and Company, the English language bookstore that in its earlier incarnation nurtured expat writers like James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway in the 1920's.



9. Visit the Conciergerie, the royal palace turned into a prison where Marie Antoinette spent her last days

10. Visit the rooftop of the Tour Montparnasse (Montparnasse Tower)

11. Visit Place de la Concorde, former site of the guillotine

12. Use the Art Nouveau public toilets next to the Eglise de la Madeleine

13. Climb up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe

14. Visit the Palais Royal courtyard, gardens and shopping arcades. Sit on the the famous Buren Columns.

15. Hit the bar scene in the Latin Quarter

16. Visit the Palace of Versailles and gardens

17. Go to a show at the Moulin Rouge

The Mosquée de Paris is an active mosque that's open to the public.

The courtyard is breathtaking -- an Andalusian garden with fountains with Moroccan mosaics. The patios, doors, and tilework all incorporate classical aspects of Islamic art.



After a quick tour of the mosque, you can head around to the open-air café and restaurant for sweet mint tea and North African pastries.

Also on the premises is a hammam. Going to the Turkish baths is my favorite thing that I've done in Paris so far! You can just steam if you want, or you can buy different package deals that comes with black soap, a body scrub by the staff, a massage, and a glass of mint tea.

There are four steam rooms that go from coolest to hottest, along with showers where you can rinse off the black soap and body scrub. Wear a swimsuit and flip flops (or use their communal ones), and bring a couple of your own towels. (They rent out towels for 4 euros if you don't have one, and they also rent out small lockers for your valuables.)

19. Centre Pompidou

20. Palais du Tokyo (Contemporary Art)

21. Musee Moderne

22. Fondation Cartier (Contemporary Art)

23. Picasso Museum (Closed for Renovation, but put it on your Bucket List for 2012!)

24. Rodin Museum (pictured)

25. The Orangerie

26. Orsay Museum

27. The Louvre

28. Quai Branly Museum (Artifacts from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas)

29. Musee Carnavalet

30. Cite d'Architecture (Architecture Museum. Visit by Oct. 2011 to see the Elle magazine decoration suite designed by Jean Paul Gautier)

Guidebooks too heavy? Download helpful iPhone and iPad apps that will help you get the most out of Paris.

Metro Paris Subway
Subway map apps beat the printed Metro map because they clarify overlapping points, lines and other ambiguities in a way that a compressed printed map can't.

Paris Map Offline
A Paris map app that you don't need a Wi-Fi connection to use, but that still has location tracking when you ARE connected to WiFi.

Rick Steves' Louvre Tour
I love Rick Steves' museum guides. He takes seemingly overwhelming art collections and breaks them down into bite size chunks, and then he neatly places the artworks into a historical context that the average, non-scholarly tourist can understand. I never enter a museum without him.

Rick Steves' Orsay Museum Tour
If you're a fan of impressionist art, get this app before heading to the Musee d'Orsay.

Rick Steves' Historic Paris Walk
This 30-minute walk covers the oldest part sof Paris -- Ile de la Cite and the historic sections of the 6th arrondissement (the Latin Quarter, etc.) -- through text, audio, and video. I did this walk with one of my best friends the very first time I went to Paris, but with the physical guidebook. One of us would read, and the other would scout the stops on the walking tour. We had fun, but it would have been much cooler if everyone could watch the video or listen to the audio together, like you can with this app.

Versailles Guide
If you decide not to take one of the official tours of the Palace of Versailles, you could use this app instead. Even if you do take the palace tour, Steves' app includes information about the Versailles gardens and grounds that you wouldn't get on the palace tour.

Michelin Paris Restaurant Guide
Find great places to eat in Paris while you're on the go.



Zagat To Go
Browse restaurants in 45 cities (including Paris) whether you're on or offline. Find the nearest restaurant, or get directions to anyplace special that you want to dine.


French / English Translation Dictionary by Ultralingua
Is your high school French a little rusty? With this app, you'll have the French words you need (and the English translations) at your fingertips.

31. Notre Dame (pictured). Climb the tower to see the church bells and gargoyles up close

32. Sainte Chapelle, a medieval gothic church renowned for its stained glass

33. Eglise de la Madeleine

34. Saint-Eustache

35. Saint-Severin

36. Saint-Sulpice, which was featured in The Da Vinci Code

37. Sacre Coeur (Not much to see inside, but the view from the dome, and the famous steps, is magnificent.)

38. Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis

39. Basilica of Saint Denis, the burial place for French royalty

The creators of the Meet me at Père Lachaise app have lovingly mapped out and crafted audio tours to guide English speakers to the famous graves.

Because Père Lachaise Cemetery is ginormous, and there are so many famous graves to seek out, and there really aren't any staff on hand to assist tourists, you really do need to be armed with some type of cemetery map or guide. The graves are HARD to find, and wandering aimlessly, hoping to stumble upon a famous grave is rather futile. (Plenty of puzzled tourists have given up, unable to find Jim Morrison's meager-looking grave. Don't let this happen to you.)

The Meet me at Père Lachaise app has 31 audio tours with beautiful photography, a map, a bookmarking function, and cemetery hours and visitor information. In many ways, it's more personalized than a guided tour. You can customize your own tour to see what YOU want to see, and you can stop and linger as long as you want without having to stick to a tour guide's itinerary.

If you're a serious grave hunter, you might want to check out the full-length companion guidebook, Meet Me At Père Lachaise: a guided tour of Père Lachaise Cemetery.

41. Montmartre Cemetery. See the graves of Degas, Gustave Moreau, François Truffaut, Dalida and more

42. Paris Catacombs. Wander through the tunnels of Paris' underground ossuary

43. Passy Cemetery. See the graves of the Givenchy family, Edouard Manet, and the last emperor of Vietnam

44. Montparnasse Cemetery. See Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Baudelaire, and Serge Gainsbourg's graves.

45. Paris Sewer Museum, where a portion of the historic Paris sewers that are still in use has been turned into a museum

46. La Defense. See the Grande Arche (the rooftop is now closed to the public). Enjoy shopping, public sculptures, the Museum de la Defense, and the small vineyard (Le Clos de Chantecoq) at the far end of the promenade

47. Viaduc des Arts and Promenade Plantée. This arts district (and the garden walkway above it) were converted from the old train tracks and viaduct that used to service the former rail station at Place de la Bastille.

48. Bercy Village. A pedestrian shopping area near the Seine where 19th century wine warehouses have been converted into charming shops and restaurants

49. Bibliotheque Mitterand, the home of the French national library, as well as temporary and permanent exhibits, including Coronelli's "Globes of Louis XIV"

50. The Museum of Eroticism in -- where else? - Pigalle. Musee de l'Erotisme.

51. Musee Grevin, Paris' wax museum

52. Little Africa and Little Jaffna. An ethnically diverse neighborhood in the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis / Gare du Nord / La Chapelle area that features North African, Turkish, Indian, and Sri Lankan restaurants, grocery stores, and food shops

53. Paris Chocolate Museum, Choco-Story: Le Musee gourmand du chocolat
Workshops, demonstrations and tastings, and exhibitions related to the history of chocolate

54. Paris Wine Museum, Musee du Vin
Explore the history of wine on the site of a former 15th-century monastery

55. Musée de la Poupée, French doll museum with over 500 dolls from the 1800s to today.

57. Place Monge Market

58. Bastille Market (Richard Lenoir)

59. Batignolles organic Market

60. Blvd. Raspail Market (and Raspail organic market)

61. President Wilson Market

62. Aligre Market (North African, Caribbean, and Asian foods)

63. Marche aux Puces St-Ouen de Clignancourt (flea market)


    Paris Food Markets App
    Amazon.com:  

This app gives you the days of and hours of operation for Paris markets, along with Metro info. Choose food markets by neighborhood, and map them with the integrated Google Maps functionality.

64. Japanese Ramen on Rue Saint-Anne

65. Berthillon Ice Cream

66. A Grec (gyro / döner kebab). I love that they put the fries in inside the pita with the meat

67. Guafres (waffles with nutella or other sugary toppings) by the Republique monument

68. Deep fried Spanish ham croquettes at L'Avant Comptoir bar. Sign the wall and bring a photo to post.
(Located at 3 carrefour de l'Odéon 75006 Paris)

70. Parc Monceau

71. Square Jean XXIII, (behind and alongside Notre Dame)

72. Tuileries Gardens (between the Louvre and Place de la Concorde, pictured)

73. Luxembourg Gardens. Visit the picturesque Medici Fountain and see the Statue of Liberty model in the sculpture garden

74. Champ du Mars, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower

75. Parc des Buttes Chaumont. Climb up to the Roman folly that overlooks the city.



76. Bois de Boulogne. A massive green space, modeled after London's Hyde Park. See the flower gardens of Parc de Bagatelle and the Roland-Garros tennis stadium, home of the French Open. Also enjoy horseback riding, restaurants, and rowboat and bike rental.

77. Bois de Vincennes. Similar to Bois du Boulogne, but on the complete opposite side (outskirts) of town. It's also home to the Paris Zoo.

78. Île des Cygnes. There's a Statue of Liberty replica, a gift from French expats in the U.S., at the tip of the island. The statue was a clue in the movie National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets.



79. Parc de la Villette

80. Parc Andre Citroen. Ride in the hot air balloon.

81. Place des Vosges in the Marias, the oldest city square in Paris. Victor Hugo's home (which you can visit) overlooks the square.

82. Square des Batignolles, an English garden

83. Jardin des Halles


84. Parc Clichy Batignolles / Martin Luther King

85. Jardin Atlantique on the rooftop of Gare Montparnasse

86. Parc Montsouris

87. Jardin des Plantes, which is not just your average park. There are Natural History museums, greenhouses, a zoo with really exotic animals, a rose garden, and lots of other themed gardens within.

89. Printemps department store

90. Galeries Lafayette department store (see #7)

91. Le Bon Marché department Store

92. Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré for designer shopping

93. St. Germain boutiques (on Rue Bonaparte, Rue du Four/Rue de Sevres, Rue de Rennes)

94. Montmartre boutiques (on Rue des Martyrs, Rue Yvonne Le Tac, Rue des Abbesses, Rue Lepic, and Rue de Caulincourt)

95. Marais boutiques

96. Village St. Paul, where eclectic shops selling French antiques and one of a kind finds surround a maze of interconnected courtyards. (Rue St. Paul, Marais)

97. Oberkampf boutiques

98. Canal St. Martin boutiques

99. At Home with Patricia Wells
American expat food writer Patricia Wells offers a 5-day food adventure at her St. Germain cooking studio in Paris, limited to 7 students. (Now taking sign-ups for 2012)

100. Le Cordon Bleu
Did you know that you can take day classes at Le Cordon Bleu? You don't have to be a professional chef-in-training to follow in Julia Child's footsteps. Look for their list of "Short Courses" for adults, which include one-day, two-day, and four-day classes on pastries, breadmaking, sauces, macarons and bistro dishes.

101. French Macaron Classes
Promenades Gourmandes, La Cuisine Paris, and Ecole de Pâtisserie du Pavillon Elysée Lenotre are among the cooking schools offering macaron making classes in Paris. Yum!