Paris 4-Day Itinerary: The Classic First-Time Route

What does the fourth day in Paris actually buy?

The fourth day buys the day trip, and without it a Paris visit is three neighborhood days on foot. Paris proper covers only about 105 square km, divided into 20 arrondissements that spiral clockwise from the 1st (the Louvre) on the Right Bank, so three days can cover the centre with very little transport: the 1st to 4th for the Louvre, Ile de la Cite and Le Marais; the 5th to 7th for the Latin Quarter, Saint-Germain and the Eiffel Tower; and the 18th for Montmartre. Day four is what lets Versailles or another out-of-town site happen without cutting a city day in half.

First-time visitors should keep that structure. Repeat visitors who have already seen Versailles can spend day four in the 10th along Canal Saint-Martin and in the 20th at Pere Lachaise, both outside the tourist core and reachable by Metro. Travelers arriving on a morning long-haul flight should count arrival day as a half day: RER B from Charles de Gaulle reaches Gare du Nord in about 30 minutes, trains run about every 10 minutes, and some off-peak services run non-stop from the airport into Paris. From Orly, Metro line 14 has run directly into the centre since June 2024.

Museum lovers should note that many Paris museums close one weekday, and the palace at Versailles also closes one weekday, so the order of the four days is set by the calendar rather than by preference. Check the closure day of each major site before assigning it to a date.

A realistic four-day structure without backtracking

Walk within a river bank and ride the Metro only to change banks or to reach Montmartre. The Metro has 16 lines and 321 stations packed into that small area, so no point in the centre is more than a few minutes from a platform, and trains run from about 05:30 to about 01:15, later on Friday and Saturday nights.

• Day 1, Right Bank centre: Ile de la Cite, where Notre-Dame reopened in December 2024 after the 2019 fire, then Le Marais in the 3rd and 4th. Everything is within a 20-minute walk.
• Day 2, the Louvre and the river axis: the Louvre in the 1st in the morning, then the Tuileries walk west toward the 8th, or cross the Seine to the 7th for the Orsay. Two museums, one day, one direction.
• Day 3, Montmartre then the Left Bank: the 18th by Metro early, before the crowds build on the hill, then Metro to the 5th and 6th for the Latin Quarter and Saint-Germain, ending near the Eiffel Tower in the 7th at dusk.
• Day 4, Versailles: RER C to Versailles Chateau Rive Gauche takes about 37 minutes from Saint-Michel-Notre-Dame, and a few minutes less from Champ de Mars-Tour Eiffel further along the same line; the palace is under 10 minutes on foot from the station. The estate is a full day, and the Trianon palaces sit a long walk from the main palace, so build that walk into the afternoon.

Versailles has two other stations, Chantiers with trains from Montparnasse and Rive Droite with trains from Saint-Lazare, both a longer walk from the palace than Rive Gauche; use them only if the hotel sits on one of those lines.

First-timer mistakes in a 4-day Paris plan, and what to skip

The biggest four-day mistake is placing the Louvre and Versailles on consecutive days without checking which weekday each closes; when both fall wrong, two of the four days collapse into the same replacement plan.

• Pairing the Eiffel Tower and Montmartre in one morning. They sit in the 7th and the 18th on opposite sides of the city; do Montmartre early and the tower at dusk on the same day, or split them.
• Taking a taxi from Charles de Gaulle at rush hour. RER B is about 30 minutes to Gare du Nord regardless of traffic.
• Choosing a hotel by arrondissement number alone. A room in the 11th on a direct Metro line beats a room in the 1st that needs two changes. Check the line, not the digit.
• Walking up to the Louvre without a timed slot. Book the entry time first and build the rest of day two around it.
• Treating Versailles as a half day. The rail leg is short, but the palace, the gardens and the Trianons fill the day.

What to skip on four days: a second full museum day, the Champs-Elysees as a destination rather than a walk-through, and dinner in a district other than the one where the day ends. Skip changing hotels; four nights in one place on a direct line to Gare du Nord or Montparnasse costs less time than any move.

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