If you have just one day to explore the main city of France, we recommend spending at least 3-4 hours on a sightseeing tour of Paris. They can take place on foot or by bus - in a short time you will be shown the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris and the Eiffel Tower, you will be guided along the Seine embankments and told about what a symbol of France used to be on Place de la Concorde, take a tour of the Louvre and see the monument at the Pont d-Alma bridge where Princess Diana crashed.
Bus tours of Paris
A few companies offer them — for example, Les Cars Rouges (taking tourists in traditional red-colored double-deckers), Foxity (orange buses), and Open Tours (yellow buses).
We recommend Les Cars Rouges — their tickets are valid for up to two days, allowing you to hop on and off any of the red buses, and an audio guide is included. The cost of such sightseeing tours in Paris starts from 30 EUR.
Excursions to the suburbs of Paris are also very popular. At the top of the list is, of course, Versailles — the former residence of the French kings. There is plenty to see here: a magnificent manicured park, the Marble Trianon, and ancient fountains darkened by time. By the way, you can visit without joining a tour — tickets are available on the official Versailles website and cost around 25 EUR.
Finally, if you want to see the real city beyond the tourist sites or discover Paris’s most unusual corners, we recommend booking a private guided tour. Popular themes include routes of famous film and literary characters, “Picasso’s, Hemingway’s and Van Gogh’s Paris,” the haunts of Parisian ghosts, the city’s most romantic literary cafés, and the house of the legendary alchemist Nicolas Flamel.
Tours inspired by Alexandre Dumas are especially popular among visitors. Expect to pay around 150–180 EUR per group of up to four people.
