Paris has a reputation for expense that is partly deserved and partly a failure to know what is free. The city has more genuinely free major sights than almost any European capital.
What costs nothing
Every parish church. Saint-Sulpice, Saint-Eustache, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, La Madeleine. These are not minor buildings — Saint-Eustache is enormous and holds a Rubens.
Several city museums. The permanent collections at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, the Musée Carnavalet on the city's history, and the Petit Palais are free.
Père Lachaise cemetery — a walled city of tombs, free, and one of the best walks in Paris.
The Latin Quarter, Le Marais, Montmartre, the Canal Saint-Martin — the walking is the activity.
The Seine banks, and the bouquiniste stalls along them.
Sunday markets — Bastille, Aligre, Belleville — free to walk and cheap to eat from.
The bar versus table rule
The most useful daily saving in France.
Cafés legally charge more for table service, and the prices are posted. An espresso is €1.20–2 standing at the counter and €5–7 seated on a busy square. A beer follows the same pattern.
Two coffees a day for four days is €30 saved by standing, and standing at the bar is what Parisians do.
Eating for less
The formule at lunch — two courses, sometimes three, for €14–20 on weekdays. Better food than the same restaurant serves at dinner for double.
Boulangerie lunch. A sandwich jambon-beurre or a quiche at €4–7, eaten in a park, is a genuinely good meal.
Markets. Cheese, bread, charcuterie and fruit from a market for €10 feeds two people well.
Avoid restaurants with photographic menus and staff soliciting from the door, particularly around Notre-Dame, the Louvre and Montmartre's Place du Tertre.
Where to stay
| Arrondissement | Character | vs centre |
|---|---|---|
| 10th (Canal St-Martin) | Young, good food | −25% |
| 11th (Oberkampf) | Bars, restaurants | −25% |
| 18th (upper Montmartre) | Residential, hilly | −30% |
| 19th / 20th (Belleville) | Diverse, cheapest | −35% |
| 1st–8th | Central, expensive | baseline |
All are on the Métro and ten to twenty minutes from the centre. Belleville and Ménilmontant in particular have excellent food at prices the 6th arrondissement does not offer.
Transport
Paris is compact — walking across the centre takes about 45 minutes.
Where you need the Métro, buy a carnet of ten tickets or load a Navigo Easy card rather than singles. The weekly Navigo Découverte runs on calendar weeks rather than from arrival, so a midweek-to-midweek trip wastes half of it.
From the airports: the RER B from CDG is €11.80, and the regulated taxi flat fare is €56 to the Right Bank and €65 to the Left, fixed regardless of traffic.
What genuinely costs
The Louvre, Orsay, the Eiffel Tower, Sainte-Chapelle, the Catacombs and Versailles. On a budget, one paid site a day is the ceiling — and Sainte-Chapelle at around €13 gives more per euro than almost anything else in the city.
The Museum Pass pays off from three museums onward and mainly buys queue-skipping. It does not cover the Eiffel Tower.