Paris has fewer sites that genuinely require guiding than Rome does, because most of what matters is above ground and reasonably signposted. The tours worth money here solve specific problems.
The Louvre needs a strategy, not a guide
The museum holds over 30,000 exhibited works in a building that takes fifteen minutes to cross. The failure mode is wandering.
Pick a wing before you go in:
Denon — Italian Renaissance painting, the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory. Most crowded.
Sully — Egyptian antiquities and the medieval Louvre foundations. Calmer.
Richelieu — French painting, Mesopotamia, Napoleon III's apartments. Quietest.
Two to three hours is the ceiling. A guide helps if you want the narrative; an audio guide or a planned route does most of the same work for a fraction.
Book a timed slot regardless — it is required. Use the Carrousel du Louvre or Porte des Lions entrances when the Pyramid queue is bad.
Versailles needs timing, not a guide
The palace interior works with an audio guide, and the gardens — which are the better part — need nothing at all.
What matters is when you arrive. At opening or after 3pm avoids the worst of it. The Trianon estate and Marie Antoinette's hamlet, at the far end of the gardens, are quiet all day and are the most pleasant part of the site.
The fountain shows run on specific days in season and are ticketed separately.
Worth booking
The catacombs. Book online — walk-up queues are long and numbers are capped. The visit runs 1.5 km underground past the remains of around six million people, takes 45 minutes, and includes an audio guide. Not suitable for anyone uncomfortable in confined spaces.
Sainte-Chapelle. Small, queues badly, and the upper chapel's fifteen metres of thirteenth-century glass on all sides is the most striking interior in Paris. Book it.
A Montmartre walk with a good guide, if the artists' quarter history interests you. The relationship between the hill, the Commune and the building of Sacré-Cœur is genuinely not obvious.
Do independently
Musée d'Orsay, which most visitors enjoy more than the Louvre — a converted railway station holding the Impressionists at a scale you can finish in two hours.
The Marais, the Latin Quarter, Canal Saint-Martin, Belleville. Walking neighbourhoods.
Père Lachaise, free, and one of the great walks in the city.
The covered passages of the 2nd and 9th — nineteenth-century glass-roofed arcades, free, and an ideal wet afternoon.
Booking summary
| Site | Book |
|---|---|
| Eiffel Tower | Weeks ahead in summer |
| Louvre | Timed slot, required |
| Sainte-Chapelle | Yes |
| Catacombs | Yes |
| Musée d'Orsay | Optional |
| Versailles | Timed slot advisable |
The Museum Pass pays off from three museums onward and mainly buys queue-skipping. It does not cover the Eiffel Tower, and the Louvre still requires a reservation with it.