Tour · 6 stops · ~half a day
Rainy Day Paris
Six places to be inside.
When the forecast turns grey: the covered passages, the museums with intimate scale, the church with the best stained glass for cloudy light. Métro between most — the whole point is staying dry.
Through the2e · Bourse & Sentier3e · Haut Marais6e · Saint-Germain-des-Prés1er · Louvre & Les Halles
1Galerie Vivienne
1823. The grandest of the covered passages — barrel-vaulted glass, mosaic floor by Italian craftsman Giandomenico Facchina, bookshop running since 1826. Already a stop on the Covered Passages tour but the obvious starting point on a rainy day.
Enter from 4 Rue des Petits-Champs. Sit at À Priori Thé for an hour with a book — full menu, slow service, glass roof above. The Galerie Colbert (next door, sister arcade) is worth a five-minute look immediately after.
From Wikipedia›
The Galerie Vivienne is one of the covered passages of Paris, located in the 2nd arrondissement. It is 176 metres (577 ft) long and 3 metres (9.8 ft) wide. The gallery has been registered as a historical monument since 7 July 1974.
Read more on Wikipedia →Verified nearby ·Galerie Vivienne1 minDaroco Bourse2 min
→Métro Bourse (line 3) → Strasbourg-Saint-Denis, transfer to line 8 to Filles du Calvaire (4 stops). Walk west to Rue Élzévir for Carnavalet — about 15 min total.
48.86660, 2.34020
2Musée Carnavalet
23 Rue de Sévigné. Free city-of-Paris museum dedicated to the city's history, in two adjoining 16th- and 17th-century mansions. Reopened 2021 after a five-year renovation — the new layout chronological and beautiful. Holds Proust's reconstructed cork-lined bedroom from 102 Boulevard Haussmann.
Free entry. Allow 2 hours minimum. Start on the top floor (Roman/medieval Paris) and work down chronologically. The two 18th-century salons on the first floor — golden boiseries, intact rococo plasterwork — are the rainy-day reward.
From Wikipedia›
The Musée Carnavalet in Paris is dedicated to the history of the city. The museum occupies two neighboring mansions: the Hôtel Carnavalet and the former Hôtel Le Peletier de Saint Fargeau. On the advice of Baron Haussmann, the civil servant who transformed Paris in the latter half of the 19th century, the Hôtel Carnavalet was purchased by the Municipal Council of Paris in 1866; it was opened to the public in 1880. By the latter part of the 20th century, the museum was full to capacity. The Hôtel Le Peletier de Saint Fargeau was annexed to the Carnavalet and opened to the public in 1989.
Read more on Wikipedia →Verified nearby ·Musée Carnavalet — Histoire de Paris1 minMusée Cognacq-Jay3 min
→Walk west to Rue de Bretagne, then south to Marché des Enfants Rouges — about 5 min. The covered market gives shelter and lunch.
48.85700, 2.36240
3Marché des Enfants Rouges
39 Rue de Bretagne, founded 1615 — the oldest covered market in Paris. The covered hall has prepared-food counters with communal tables: Moroccan tagines, Italian pasta, Lebanese mezze. A reliable rainy-lunch.
Closed Mondays. Lunch is the move — counters serve until 14:30. The Moroccan tagine counter is the local favourite; arrive at noon to beat the queue.
From Wikipedia›
The Marché des Enfants Rouges is the oldest covered market in Paris, France. It was established in 1628 as the "petit marché du Marais" and is located at 39 Rue de Bretagne in the Marais (3rd) arrondissement. The market has been listed as a historic monument since 1982.
Read more on Wikipedia →Verified nearby ·Le Traiteur Marocain (Enfants Rouges)1 minChez Omar1 min
→Métro Filles du Calvaire (line 8) → Saint-Paul (line 1, transfer at République). 5 stops. Walk south to Pont Marie, cross to Île Saint-Louis. Sainte-Chapelle is at the western end of Île de la Cité.
48.86290, 2.36210
4Sainte-Chapelle
Dim, cloudy light is paradoxically when Sainte-Chapelle's stained glass is most luminous — the 1,113 individual scenes seem to glow rather than burn through with summer-noon glare. Built 1248; 75% of the upper-chapel walls are 13th-century original glass.
Skip the lower chapel. Climb to the upper chapel and sit on the bench against the rear wall for ten minutes — the colour shifts as clouds move. Combined ticket with the Conciergerie next door is the best value.
From Wikipedia›
The Sainte-Chapelle is a royal chapel in the Gothic style, within the medieval Palais de la Cité, the residence of the Kings of France until the 14th century, on the Île de la Cité in the River Seine in Paris, France.
Read more on Wikipedia →→Métro Cité (line 4) → Solférino (line 12, transfer at Concorde). 5 stops. Walk west to Quai Anatole-France for the Musée d'Orsay. Or RER C from Saint-Michel directly to Musée d'Orsay station — 2 stops.
48.85540, 2.34500
- 5
Musée d'Orsay
Inside a converted 1900 Beaux-Arts railway station. Houses the world's greatest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings: Monet, Manet, Pissarro, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Degas. The grand-clock view from the fifth floor — through the giant transparent station-clock face — is the unexpected photograph.
Free first Sunday of each month. Bag the impressionist galleries on the fifth floor first (the most-visited rooms; emptier in late afternoon as crowds thin). The two giant clock-face windows — one in the café, one in the corner of the impressionist galleries — are the photograph.
From Wikipedia›
The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built from 1898 to 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, and van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986. It is one of the largest art museums in Europe.
Read more on Wikipedia →→Walk along the Seine to Pont Neuf, cross, and take Métro Pont Neuf (line 7) → Pyramides → Palais Royal (transfer to line 7), one stop. Or just walk through the Tuileries to the Louvre, ~15 min, mostly under shop arcades on Rue de Rivoli on the north side.
48.85990, 2.32660
6Galerie Véro-Dodat
1826 covered arcade in the 1st. Smaller and more discreet than Vivienne, with a black-and-white marble chequerboard floor and 38 mahogany shop fronts. Christian Louboutin's atelier is at no. 19. Ends the day with a return to glass-roofed shelter.
Enter from Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The small Café de l'Époque mid-arcade serves a respectable hot chocolate. Walk slowly — most of the shop fronts are antiquities and rare-book dealers, the kind of windows you stop at by accident.
From Wikipedia›
The Galerie Véro-Dodat is one of the covered passages of Paris. It is located in the 1st arrondissement, connecting the Rue de Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs. It was built in 1826.
Read more on Wikipedia →Verified nearby ·Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection2 minGalerie Véro-Dodat2 min
48.86350, 2.34150