Alexandre Vassiliev has lived in Paris for over forty years — it’s his home. Here he became a French citizen, was operated on in a state hospital, learned all 20 arrondissements and the fine Parisian protocol of the love triangle. Exclusively for Locals Insider, the fashion historian, set designer, and collector has put together a personal guide to Paris.
The City That Chooses Who It Will Like
Ah, Paris. Millions of people, possibly billions, dream of coming here from every corner of the world. And Paris is exhausted by tourism — it now has the right to choose whom it will like and whom it won’t. If you happen to be among those Paris didn’t take to, that means the city didn’t take to you. You didn’t fit, with your character, your demands, perhaps your taste.
Paris is a magnificent, dazzling cultural center where there are no bedbugs, no rats, and no “immigrant takeover,” as people like to say. I don’t see it. Paris has always been an international city. Historically, the heavy physical labor that built and maintains Paris — construction, road work, drains and sewers, gas mains, welding, garbage collection — was largely done by workers from France’s former colonies in Africa and Asia.
Many of them found they loved living here. They didn’t just collect the garbage — they raised families, had children who became completely French and consider themselves Parisians just like everyone else. They have every right to.
The 20 Arrondissements in a Spiral: Where to Stay and Where Not To
Paris is divided into 20 arrondissements, numbered like a snail’s shell — a spiral coiling outward from the center. There are good neighborhoods and bad ones, and the good outnumber the bad. Let me tell you where not to live, so you can figure out where you should.
The arrondissements considered worst are the 18th, 19th, and 20th. I lived in the 20th myself — cheap, but the quality isn’t there. Bordering them, the 11th and 12th are average. All the rest are considered more or less good. The best of all are the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 16th, and 17th, plus the suburbs. This is where you’ll find Paris’s most expensive hotels.
For travelers who want to stay near the center without going broke, I recommend the Left Bank — hotels in the 13th, 14th, or 15th arrondissements. They’re sensibly cheaper than the Right Bank, and the distance to the sights is exactly the same.
The Best Museums in Paris: The Louvre After the Heist, and the Alternatives
Paris isn’t only an open-air museum of monuments, sculptures, parks, gardens, palaces, cathedrals, and mansions. It’s also a city of indoor museums — the largest of which is the Louvre. After the high-profile heist of October 2025, getting into the Louvre has become noticeably harder: bookings now go through the internet, you’re offered a specific time and date. It’s almost like buying a plane ticket.
But there are wonderful alternatives. The second most visited museum is the Musée d’Orsay, home to the Impressionists. It sits in the former Gare d’Orsay, the rail station that opened in 1900, closed in 1939, and has been operating as a world-class museum since 1986. These two are the most popular, and they’re always packed. But Paris has many other superb collections.
- Musée de Cluny — the Museum of the Middle Ages
- Musée Jacquemart-André — Renaissance and the 18th century
- Musée Carnavalet — the history of Paris, free admission, a unique collection
- Petit Palais (the Museum of Fine Arts of the City of Paris) — a collection that rivals the Louvre’s, free to visit
Many people don’t know this, and walk right past them.
The Five Fashion Museums of Paris
Paris is home to five museums of fashion — the city with the largest number of museums devoted to fashion in the world:
- Palais Galliera — the Fashion Museum of the City of Paris
- Musée Yves Saint Laurent, five minutes from Galliera, in the very building where the YSL fashion house operated for thirty years
- La Galerie Dior, ten minutes from YSL — there’s always a line, but the collections are exceptional
- Musée des Arts Décoratifs, 107 rue de Rivoli — with a permanent Museum of Fashion and Textiles attached, featuring lavish couture shows
- Fondation Azzedine Alaïa — devoted to the late-20th-century designer Azzedine Alaïa, originally from Tunisia, who collected vintage Dior, Chanel, Vionnet, Balenciaga, YSL, and Givenchy garments to study and rework their cut into his modern designs
Best Museums in Paris, Picked by Locals Insider
- Musée du Louvre — Rue de Rivoli, 1st arrondissement. The most visited museum in the world. Since the October 2025 heist, advance online booking is required. Tickets €22. Closed Tuesdays.
- Musée d’Orsay — 1 rue de la Légion d’Honneur, 7th arrondissement. The Impressionists in a 1900 railway station. Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Degas, Renoir. Tickets €16. Closed Mondays.
- Musée Carnavalet — 23 rue de Sévigné, 3rd arrondissement. The complete history of Paris from antiquity to the present, across two Renaissance mansions. Permanent collection free. Closed Mondays.
- Petit Palais — Avenue Winston Churchill, 8th arrondissement. From antiquity to the early 20th century. Permanent collection free. Closed Mondays.
- Musée Jacquemart-André — 158 boulevard Haussmann, 8th arrondissement. A private collector’s mansion with Renaissance and 18th-century holdings. The famous tea salon under a Tiepolo fresco. Tickets €17.
The City of Love Triangles
Paris is an intensely theatrical city. Every evening the curtain rises in dozens of theaters: the great national stages — Opéra de Paris, Opéra Bastille, Opéra Comique, Théâtre de l’Odéon, Comédie-Française, Théâtre du Châtelet — and a vast number of boulevard theaters where plays run featuring three or four star actors.
These are usually comedies of situation, and many of them run for years: audiences love returning to the same thing. I remember from my youth the posters for plays like One Pajama for Six and Let’s Have Breakfast in Bed, both of which played for ten years straight.
Paris loves a juicy story. This is a city built for affairs. A proper Parisian is married and necessarily has a mistress. The wife knows perfectly well who the mistress is, invites her to dinner, sorts things out with her civilly — and then all three of them go on vacation together.
For other nations this is unthinkable; for Parisians, perfectly normal. The love triangle is a defining institution of Parisian life.
Beware of Street Encounters
Nevertheless, I’m against picking people up on the street. Try to be introduced through someone you know — at least so that you have some sense of where the person comes from, what they do, what their character is like, whether they’re attached. Paris is famous for its endless deceits, and many travelers, not understanding what they’re walking into, get taken in.
Sit down on boulevard Saint-Germain — home to the two iconic cafés, Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots, where the bohemian crowd and wealthy foreigners go — and if you look good and smile sweetly, sooner or later a man will introduce himself as the Consul of Brazil in Paris.
Then it’ll be a famous film director scouting his next actress. Or a booker from a modeling agency, spinning an elaborate story about how you in particular caught his eye, because he wants to make you the lead in his next picture. Next week he’ll insist that you, specifically, should join him on a free trip to Brazil, to the waterfalls. The week after, that you, of all people, are destined to be on the next cover of Elle.
Many fall for it and end up in bed easily. In the morning, when you part ways, he’ll never call again — won’t even bother to find out what became of you. Because it was all a total lie with a single objective. This is quintessentially Parisian. Parisians are extraordinarily, dangerously talented in the art of conversation.
Cabarets, Cinemas, and the Cancan
Paris is a city of cabarets. Lido, Crazy Horse, Moulin Rouge — the legendary revues with cancan, feathers, midair splits, endless costume changes, staircases descended in heels and rhinestones with bare breasts. It’s quintessentially Parisian entertainment, and foreigners are especially susceptible. Parisians themselves don’t go.
But the Moulin Rouge alone seats so many people that 600,000 visitors pass through each year. The average ticket runs about €120. They run two shows on Fridays and Saturdays (9 p.m. and 11 p.m.), and one performance on weeknights. Multiply by 600,000 and you’ll see what astronomical sums we’re talking about.
Paris is a city of cinemas. The French still love going to the movies, and French auteur film, art house, and Hollywood are all enormously popular. Paris also shows a great deal of repertory work: there are Audrey Hepburn weeks, Alfred Hitchcock weeks, Marilyn Monroe weeks — mini-festivals devoted to a single actress or director. If you’re new to old film and have never seen any of this, it’s revelatory.
The Sales: Only During Les Soldes
Paris is a city of sales. They’re called les soldes, and at the end of every season every clothing store is required to hold one. Discounts begin at 30% and reach 70%. Real Parisians only ever buy during les soldes, because clothing here is always expensive, and they can hardly wait for the sales to begin so they can storm the boutiques. Everyone today lives with one eye on the wallet.
Where to Eat: Le Procope, Bouillons, and One Cardinal Rule
Among Paris’s restaurants with great reputations, I recommend Le Procope to everyone — the oldest restaurant in Paris, opened in 1686 by the Sicilian Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli. Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, d’Alembert, Benjamin Franklin, Danton, Robespierre, Napoleon — they all came here. Their portraits and handwritten notes decorate the rooms.
The famous dishes are coq au vin (chicken in wine), which they cook particularly well here, and boeuf bourguignon — beef in red wine, one of the canonical French braises.
And here is the one rule I’ve worked out over decades in Paris: mass catering is never gourmet. Don’t expect anything special on a riverboat dinner cruise — 200 people sit down to eat each evening, and feeding that many people well is physically impossible. Only a small restaurant can serve you truly well; a large one never will, because the seating is too high.
Among the finest of Paris’s brasseries, I recommend the bouillons — early-20th-century restaurants serving traditional French menus at the lowest prices in town. You won’t find anything cheaper anywhere in Paris. The atmosphere is pure Parisian, the service profoundly French.
Best Restaurants in Paris, Picked by Locals Insider
- Le Procope — 13 rue de l’Ancienne Comédie, 6th arrondissement. The oldest restaurant in Paris, opened in 1686. Coq au vin and boeuf bourguignon served on the spot where Voltaire and Rousseau ate them. Reservations essential. From €40 for lunch.
- Bouillon Chartier — 7 rue du Faubourg Montmartre, 9th arrondissement. A bouillon operating continuously since 1896. Classic menu, €15 per main. No reservations — expect a line.
- Bouillon Pigalle — 22 boulevard de Clichy, 18th arrondissement. A contemporary take on the classic bouillon. Same prices, same soul, in fresher surroundings.
- Tour d’Argent — 15 quai de la Tournelle, 5th arrondissement. One of the oldest and most expensive restaurants in Paris (1582). The famous canard à la presse with a view of Notre-Dame. From €390. Dress code, book a month ahead.
- Maxim’s — 3 rue Royale, 8th arrondissement. Art Nouveau since 1893, a touchstone of 19th- and 20th-century Paris. Closed for renovation in 2025; watch for reopening dates.
Best Bistros and Cafés in Paris, Picked by Locals Insider
- Café de Flore — 172 boulevard Saint-Germain, 6th arrondissement. Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Camus all drank here. A coffee at the bar costs €4, at a table €7.
- Les Deux Magots — 6 place Saint-Germain-des-Prés, 6th arrondissement. The neighboring icon. Hemingway, Picasso, Sartre. Slightly pricier than Flore, but with its own literary prize awarded since 1933.
- Le Train Bleu — Gare de Lyon, 12th arrondissement. A restaurant from 1901 right inside the Lyon train station. Belle Époque interior, ceiling frescoes. One of the last fully preserved restaurant interiors of the era.
Where to Stay: The Left Bank for the Budget-Conscious
Paris has no shortage of hotels. The Right Bank — in the prestigious 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 16th, and 17th arrondissements — is where you’ll find the most expensive ones. If you want central without breaking the bank, hotels on the Left Bank in the 13th, 14th, or 15th arrondissements are sensibly cheaper, and the distance to the sights is the same.
Best Hotels in Paris, Picked by Locals Insider
- Hôtel Ritz Paris — 15 place Vendôme, 1st arrondissement. A global icon of luxury since 1898. The Coco Chanel Suite, Bar Hemingway. From €1,800 per night.
- Hôtel Plaza Athénée — 25 avenue Montaigne, 8th arrondissement. Red awnings, geranium-filled balconies, on the avenue of high fashion. From €1,500 per night.
- Hôtel Costes — 239–241 rue Saint-Honoré, 1st arrondissement. Designer hotel by Jacques Garcia, with the legendary house music bar and signature restaurant. From €600 per night.
- Le Pigalle — 9 rue Frochot, 9th arrondissement. A boutique hotel in the heart of nocturnal Paris, with vinyl records in every room. From €200 per night.
- Hôtel des Grandes Écoles — 75 rue du Cardinal Lemoine, 5th arrondissement. A country manor with a garden in the Latin Quarter. A hidden gem for travelers seeking something other than a grand hotel. From €180 per night.
The Antique Markets of Paris
Paris is a city of antique markets, and four of them operate regularly:
- Marché aux puces de Saint-Ouen (Porte de Clignancourt) — the largest and most expensive: everything is locked up, and the dealers don’t haggle.
- Marché aux puces de Montreuil (Porte de Montreuil) — the cheapest, with a thin selection.
- Marché aux puces de Vanves (Porte de Vanves) — a good selection and noticeably cheaper than Saint-Ouen in the north. Many of the Saint-Ouen dealers come to Vanves at 7 a.m., buy what’s good, and have it back on their own stalls in the north by 9.
- Marché d’Aligre — Place de la Bastille, small but with a varied selection.
Parks, Walks, and Two Tariffs for Coffee
Paris is a city of parks. There are a great many extraordinary gardens: Jardin du Luxembourg, Jardin des Tuileries, Bois de Boulogne, Parc Monceau, Parc Montsouris — five famous places to walk, each capable of giving you a great deal of pleasure.
The heart of Paris is cut by the river Seine. Riding a bateau-mouche along it for the first time is unforgettable: the façades from the water, the lights at night, the bridges.
Remember that Paris has two different prices for coffee. Cheap — standing at the bar. Nearly twice as much — sitting at a table. If you’re short on cash, drink standing; if not, sit. I was always happy in Paris, even when I had no money on me. Strolls through the Marais, the Latin Quarter, and Saint-Germain are themselves a pleasure.
For travelers to whom restaurants and cafés feel too expensive, I recommend the gourmet food shops: buy a ready-made sandwich, salad, or soup, heat it up on the spot, take a wooden or plastic fork, and have it in a public garden. If you really have no money at all.
Tips from the Paris Guide
- Les soldes happen twice a year — in early January and late June. Discounts start at 30% and reach 70%. The only time real Parisians buy clothes.
- Coffee at the bar is half the price of coffee at a table. It’s set in law, not a swindle.
- Never hang your bag on the back of a café chair. It will be gone in seconds.
- Carry condoms and be aware of STIs. Paris is a city of vice and brothels: Place Blanche, Pigalle, rue Saint-Denis.
- Don’t expect gourmet on a dinner cruise. 200 people at once is mass catering. Go to a small restaurant.
- Book the Louvre two to three weeks in advance. Since the 2025 heist, walk-ins are simply not possible — online only, like a plane ticket.
- The Vanves flea market — go early. The Saint-Ouen dealers buy here at dawn and resell up north for more. Be there at 7 a.m. and you’re buying at the source.
- The bouillons — €15 for a main and no reservations. Expect a queue, but these are the best prices in Paris in a genuinely Parisian setting.
Where Next with Alexandre Vassiliev?
Alexandre Vassiliev writes for Locals Insider on cities around the world — places where cultural codes are layered as densely as in Paris:
- The Rome guide — a city where antiquity gives way to Gothic, and Gothic to Baroque.
- The Vilnius guide — a city of four cultures and one Flamboyant Gothic masterpiece.
- The Casablanca guide — art deco, Bogart, and Piaf in the largest city of Morocco.
- The Catania guide — Sicilian Baroque rebuilt from black volcanic stone.
