A Paris city break by Eurostar

Paris is expensive and always will be. What changes between January and June is how expensive, and the Eurostar is the one thing that makes a two-night trip genuinely worth taking rather than a day spent in airports.

Getting there

2 hours 16 minutes, St Pancras to Gare du Nord, and Gare du Nord is in the 10th arrondissement — you arrive in Paris, not forty minutes outside it. Standard fares start around £51 one way and £78 return, with tickets on sale up to eleven months ahead.

The cheap returns cluster between midday Monday and midnight Thursday, or on Saturdays, and usually require a Saturday night away. Flying is nominally 1h 15m from Heathrow or Gatwick, but add Charles de Gaulle to the centre at either €14 on the RER B or €56 in a taxi and the train wins on time as well as sanity.

If you do fly, one thing has changed: the Roissybus was discontinued on 1 March 2026 and replaced by bus Express 9517 to Saint-Denis Pleyel. A lot of guidance still tells you to take a bus that no longer runs.

The tourist tax

Paris charges a taxe de séjour per adult per night, by hotel class, collected on top of the room rate. From 1 January 2026: €8.45 for a four-star, €5.53 for a three-star, €3.25 for a two-star, €2.60 for a one-star or hostel. Most Airbnb-type lets count as unclassified and pay 5% of the nightly cost per person, capped at €15.93.

When to go

November to March, Christmas and New Year excepted. October and November are the cheapest months for flights, and the shoulder seasons either side — late March to May, late September to October — are the compromise if you want weather.

The trap is late January. Fashion Week lands squarely in the cheapest part of the calendar: menswear 19–24 January 2027 and haute couture 25–28 January. Hotel rates spike in a month people book precisely because they expect it to be quiet. Check the dates before you book.

How long to give it

Two nights, and pick one big thing per day. Paris punishes the attempt to do everything.

Where to stay

Le Marais

Trendy, walkable, bars and bakeries and small museums. The southern end is loud late, particularly in summer.

Latin Quarter

The classic first-visit base — narrow streets, cheap bars, bookshops. Heavily touristed now, which has pushed prices up and the students out.

Bastille

Where Parisians actually live. Good restaurants, proper nightlife, close enough to the sights without being in them. Few landmarks, and the Oberkampf end is gritty.

Montmartre

Village streets and the best view in the city. The hilltop is a tourist scrum with restaurant prices to match, the Pigalle edge is seedy, and the whole thing is stairs — a genuine problem if walking is difficult.

What two nights costs

• Eurostar — from about £78 return, booked well ahead.
• Room — [VERIFY: live prices]. There is no honest published mid-range figure for Paris: the available market data is an all-hotel average of around €350 a night, which is dragged upward by the city's enormous luxury stock and tells you nothing about a normal hotel. Check live.
• Everything else — food and drink around €72 per person per day on reported averages, local transport about €21.

What things cost: an inexpensive restaurant meal €17, a mid-range dinner for two €70, a pint €7, a cappuccino €4.55.

Transport has changed and the old advice is wrong. The carnet of ten carries no discount any more and paper tickets have gone — you load singles onto a Navigo Easy card or the app. A metro single is €2.55, a bus or tram €2.05, and a Navigo Jour day pass €12.30, which does not cover the airports.

The Louvre costs you more than it costs a French visitor

Since Brexit this is worth knowing before you arrive. Louvre admission is €22 for EEA residents and citizens and €32 for everyone else, which now includes UK visitors. It is closed on Tuesdays, and free to all on the first Friday of the month after 6pm except in July and August.

The Eiffel Tower is €36.70 by lift to the summit, €23.50 to the second floor, or €14.80 if you take the stairs. Sacré-Cœur is free. If you are doing three or more of the major museums, the Paris Museum Pass at €85 for two days is worth the arithmetic.