🇫🇷 💌 The Paris Love Letter #142

VISITING PARIS
A Quick Note from Last Week

Last week, I shared an infographic from our Paris Neighborhood Guide that helps you narrow down where to stay based on how you want Paris to feel: central and classic, lively and late-night, calm and residential, or somewhere in between.

Unfortunately, the download link didn’t work for most of you. My apologies. 😳

I’ve fixed it, and it’s available again below with the correct link. If you missed it the first time, grab it now. It’s a quick, intuitive way to understand the personality, price range, and energy of different Paris neighborhoods at a glance.

You can download this infographic by clicking here.

Linking You to Paris

➡️ 40 best things to do in Paris right now: Condé Nast Traveller rounds up 40 Paris activities with practical crowd-dodging tips like riding Métro line 6 for Eiffel Tower views and timing museum visits for late-night openings.

➡️ Healthy French Recipes To Keep Winter Habits Going: HiP Paris frames post-holiday eating as a French return to balance and shares winter recipes that stay comforting but lighter, from a clean-out-the-fridge soup to a lightened coq au vin.

➡️ Where to Stay in Paris, According to Emily in Paris: AOL rounds up real Emily in Paris filming-location hotels, all palace-designated, and flags details like Lutetia as the only Left Bank palace and Plaza Athénée’s winter ice rink.

➡️ Top Paris Concerts: 2026: Paris Discovery Guide publishes a month-by-month Paris concert calendar for 2026 with ticket links and a mix of venues, from candlelit church classics to opera, arenas, and seasonal holiday concerts.

VISITING PARIS
9 Ways to Enhance Your Paris Visit

I have walked thousands of people through this city. Over time, I have noticed something consistent: the people who fall deepest in love with Paris are not necessarily the ones with the most ambitious itineraries. They are the ones who give themselves permission to experience the city on their own terms.

The goal of a Paris visit is not to see everything. It is to see something so clearly that it changes how you think about beauty, about history, or about yourself. When you give yourself permission to experience Paris this way, the city stops being a checklist and becomes a conversation.

Here are 9 ways to deepen your time in Paris. Some are about what you do. Others are about what you choose to let go of. All of them will change how you experience this city.

1) Build space into your days
Leave 30 to 40 percent of your day unplanned. The best moments in Paris happen in the margins, in the quiet stretches between destinations. A wandering afternoon often teaches you more than a packed itinerary.

2) Eat breakfast slowly
Find a café where the light is good and sit for 20 minutes with a croissant and coffee. Do not rush to the next thing. This is not wasted time. This is Paris.

3) Walk without a destination
Pick a neighborhood and get lost in it. Turn down streets that look interesting. Notice the details: a courtyard, a shop window, the way light falls on stone. This is how you actually see a city.

4) Put your phone down for stretches
Your camera will never capture what your eyes see. Take some photos, but give yourself permission to experience moments without documenting them. The best Paris memories are the ones you felt, not the ones you posted.

5) Don't chase the Instagram-famous spots
Skip the places with the long queues and the heaps of fake flowers. Do not fall for the marketing. Paris has great food and great views almost everywhere. The best café is the one where you actually want to sit, not the one with the most likes.

6) Sit alone somewhere for 20 minutes
A café, a bench, a church, a bridge. Watch people. Think about nothing. Let the city settle into you. This is when Paris actually gets inside you.

7) Explore neighborhoods where tourists don't go
The 9th, 10th, or 11th arrondissements, for example, are easily accessible from the city center. These are not "less Paris." They are where Parisians actually live. You will see a different city, and it is often better than what you expected.

8) Give yourself permission to skip things
You will not see everything. You might not go to the Louvre. You might not climb the tower. That is okay. Paris is not a museum you need to finish. It is a city you need to feel.

9) Put your phone down at a café and notice the details around you
Watch how the server moves. Listen to the rhythm of conversation. Notice the light on the table and the way people sit. This is where Paris reveals itself as poetry. This is where the insight (inner sight) happens. Not in the monuments, but in the small theater of everyday life.

Paris is a city that rewards attention more than it rewards effort. When you stop trying to "conquer" the map, the city starts to open up to you in ways a guidebook can never describe.

What is one way you have deepened your experience of Paris? Or is there a "rule" you finally gave yourself permission to break? Hit reply and tell me. I read every response.

FRENCH SONG OF THE WEEK
Pomme - On brûlera

"On brûlera" is minimal and beautiful, built on restraint rather than spectacle. It's a song about burning, about intensity, but it whispers instead of shouting. Perfect for a café morning playlist!