Paris in three or four days: planning a short stay

Three or four days in Paris turn on the days of the week more than on the list of monuments. One museum closes on Mondays, another on Tuesdays, many restaurants close on Sundays or Mondays, some entries are booked for a set time, and the last morning holds a formality that needs preparing in advance. On so short a stay, a day in the wrong place cannot be made up.

A short stay is therefore prepared in this order: closing days and time slots first, then the tables, then whatever remains open. What follows are the five stages of a three- or four-day stay: the arrival, the tables, shopping, museums and evenings, and the departure.

Arrival day: planning the first few hours

The first day rarely begins at the hour the room is ready. Hotel check-in is often in the middle of the afternoon, while an overnight flight or an early morning train brings you into Paris well before. A room ready on arrival is requested before you travel; failing that, the luggage goes ahead to the hotel and the day begins without it.

That first afternoon is kept light. A walk through the neighbourhood around the hotel, an exhibition with no time slot to keep, a late lunch: the day is for settling in, especially after a long flight. We book the first dinner close to the hotel, at a sensible hour, and keep the most sought-after tables for the evenings that follow.

The welcome at the airport or station, the car and the journey times from Charles de Gaulle, Orly or Le Bourget are set out on our Paris page. What matters here is the time of arrival: it decides what the first day can hold.

The tables: three or four evenings, and as many lunches

Over three or four days you have three or four dinners, and each one counts. The most sought-after table belongs on the second or third evening, once the journey is behind you, and never on the evening you leave.

The restaurants’ calendar weighs as much as the museums’. Their closing days, often at the end or the start of the week, and their August holidays are checked before the evenings are allocated: a stay from Friday to Monday is not prepared like one from Tuesday to Friday.

Lunch counts as well. A four-day stay holds as many lunches as dinners, and at a number of restaurants the midday table is easier to book than the evening one.

For a fully booked table, our article Getting a table at a fully booked Paris restaurant explains when bookings open and when tables come free. We take the requests as soon as your dates are known, and your allergies, dietary requirements and preferred table go with every booking.

Shopping: the districts, Sundays and the VAT refund

Shopping belongs early in the stay. An alteration, a size brought in from another boutique or a delivery to the hotel often takes a day or two, and a purchase on the last afternoon leaves no margin.

Sunday also lends itself to shopping in certain districts. Paris has twelve international tourist zones, where shops may open on Sundays and in the evening: Saint-Honoré and Vendôme, the Champs-Élysées and Avenue Montaigne, Boulevard Haussmann and the Marais, among others. Each boutique nonetheless sets its own hours, and Sunday opening is checked address by address.

If you live outside the European Union, your purchases may qualify for a VAT refund. The boutique issues a refund form at the time of purchase, on sight of your passport, and the form is then validated as you leave the Union, which is part of the last day. Keep the forms together, with the receipts.

For shopping in the boutiques, our Paris page and our Fashion & Personal Shopping service describe what we prepare.

Museums and evenings: closing days, time slots and seasons

The museums

The major museums do not close on the same day. The Louvre closes on Tuesdays; the Musée d’Orsay closes on Mondays and stays open until 9.45pm on Thursdays; the Palace of Versailles closes on Mondays. On a stay that begins on a Monday, the order of visits is therefore settled before you arrive.

Some entries are booked for a set time. At the Louvre, booking a time slot was compulsory for everyone during several periods in 2026, including for those who enter free of charge. The 2027 periods are not yet known. The slot fixes the morning or the afternoon, and the rest of the day is arranged around it.

Versailles takes half a day at least, travel included. The visit fits more easily into four days than three, and never on a Monday.

The evenings

The Paris Opera season runs from September into the summer, between the Palais Garnier and Bastille, and seats go on sale on set dates. An evening at the opera is therefore decided as soon as your dates are settled, and dinner is then booked for after the performance.

The Paris calendar also has its crowded weeks, the fashion shows, the tennis, the fairs: our Paris page places them in the year. If your stay falls in one of them, we start with the hotel.

The last day: through to the aircraft or the train

Check-out is generally in the late morning. An evening flight leaves a whole day: the luggage stays at the hotel, the car collects it at the agreed time, and you keep the day free until you leave. A late check-out is requested the evening before at the latest.

The time to leave for the airport or the station is worked out backwards. For the Eurostar at the Gare du Nord, checks close fifteen to thirty minutes before departure depending on the class of travel. For a flight, add the traffic of the hour and, if your purchases are tax-free, the validation of the refund form.

The VAT refund, before check-in

The refund form is validated at a customs kiosk at the last point of departure from the European Union, before the end of the third month following the purchase. When you fly, validation comes before you check in the bags that hold the purchases, and customs may ask to see them. If you leave the Union from another country, the form is validated there.

We set the time of the car with these steps in mind, to leave time to validate the forms before check-in, and the driver knows the terminal.

Conclusion

A short stay in Paris is decided before you leave. The order of the days is settled around the closures, the museum slots and the tables are booked early, and the time of departure is worked out the evening before. Whatever remains can be left open.

Our Paris page describes the stay as a whole, from the arrival to the boutique appointments, and our other destinations follow the same approach. To carry on to the Riviera, Monaco in 2027 sets out the year’s events.