After everyone has settled in, we gather for a welcome lunch in the hotel breakfast room, get acquainted, and talk about the week ahead.

Our first walk takes us to the nearby Rue du Bac—one of the great Left Bank shopping streets, dense with gourmet food shops, independent boutiques, and the legendary Le Bon Marché, among the oldest and finest department stores in Paris.

We’ll stop into three exceptional places where you may want to sample your first Paris sweet—a cone from a chocolate-mousse bar, a treat from Ellen’s favorite patisserie, an exquisite choice of artisanal sorbets.

Included: Lunch, dinner

Situated on a quiet street in the storied St-Germain-des-Près quarter, the hotel provides the perfect welcome for our guests.  The staff is fluent in English, kind, helpful, efficient. The rooms are beautifully decorated and air-conditioned. Mornings, the generous breakfast spread provides something for everyone; afternoons, the lounge offers complimentary coffee and tea-time treats, and a small bar where you can enjoy a glass of wine. 

We cross to the Right Bank for a morning on the Rue des Martyrs, a charming hold-out with its family-owned shops amid the better-known, touristy areas with their globally recognized brands. Lunch is at a classic French café. 

In the afternoon, we head up to Montmartre—not the version thronged with hordes of tourists, but the one that still feels like a village tucked above the city. We’ll stroll the winding cobblestone streets passing places where Renoir, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso lived and painted, including the storied Moulin Rouge, where the cancan has been performed since 1889. Continuing into the Nouvelles-Athènes quarter—a mid-19th-century enclave that once housed Chopin, Delacroix, and George Sand, we’ll take a break at a lovely garden tea salon tucked inside a small museum set in a 19th-century villa.

Included: Breakfast, lunch, dinner

The old Les Halles quarter was famously known as “the belly of Paris”—the home for a staggering eight centuries of its great central food market, long since relocated, though the culinary DNA remains in the many historic bistros that survive here alongside some of the finest culinary stores in the city—prized by professional chefs and home cooks.

Among other stops, we’ll visit the oldest patisserie in the city, Julia Child’s favorite cookware shop, and lunch in one of those vintage bistros whose century-old tile murals depict the long-lost activity of the market.

In the afternoon, we’ll stop in at one of the best of the fabled French pharmacies for sought-after beauty and skincare products, before strolling to the Palais-Royal, with its serene, historic garden, and two of the most beautiful early-19th century covered shopping arcades.

Tonight’s dinner will be the only one outside our St Germain neighborhood. We’ll travel by bus to a private dinner at Mokonuts, an innovative small gem near the Bastille.

Included: Breakfast, lunch, dinner

The morning is devoted to chocolate—specifically, to making it. We’ll attend a hands-on workshop at one of Paris’s oldest chocolatiers. The afternoon brings a wine-and-cheese tasting in the Latin Quarter, which is exactly as pleasant as it sounds. 

Between the two, we’ll pass the Luxembourg Garden, one of the finest parks anywhere in the world, begun in 1612 by Marie de Medici, the widowed queen of Henri IV, and the Panthéon, the French national necropolis, and we’ll step inside the Flamboyant-Gothic Saint-Étienne-du-Mont to admire one of the most exquisite church interiors in the city.

Included: Breakfast, dinner

The Marais is one of the oldest quarters in Paris, and one of the best preserved—its 17th- and 18th-century architecture largely intact, its streets still holding the proportions of a pre-Haussmann city. We begin at the Hôtel de Sully, with its two magnificent courtyards, considered one of the finest town mansions in Paris and now home to the national organization responsible for French heritage sites.

We’ll pass through a hidden entrance into the Place des Vosges—the stately early 17th-century square that became the template for residential squares across Europe. You’ll enjoy some free time before we re-gather for lunch, with several terrific small museum options—the Maison Victor where the author of Les Miserables and Hunchback of Notre Dame lived for sixteen years; the Picasso Museum, for the personal collection of the modern master; and the Musée Carnavalet, devoted to the thrilling history of Paris. Others may simply explore the quarter at their own pace, perhaps ducking into one of many vintage designer-resale shops or boutiques of coveted French brands.

After lunch, we’ll stroll to the Ile St Louis, the smaller, more residential and provincial of the two Seine islands, where we will enjoy the celebrated ice cream at Berthillon in business here for almost 75 years.

Included: Breakfast, lunch, dinner

We spend the day in one of the more elegant parts of the Right Bank, beginning at the Marché President Wilson—a twice-weekly open-air market where vendors lay out extraordinary produce, flowers, clothing, accessories, and housewares. This is a true taste of the Paris of the (well-heeled) Parisians.

After a café lunch, we visit the Galerie Dior, the beautifully installed homage to one of the most venerable French couture houses—fashion history that manages to be both spectacular and surprisingly moving.

That evening, we walk to the Pont Neuf—the oldest bridge in Paris—and board an hour-long cocktail cruise along the Seine. The light at that hour on that river is not something you forget.

Included: Breakfast, lunch, dinner

In the morning, we’ll head to a quintessential French flea market at the Porte de Vanves—which is smaller and more personal than the famous Clignancourt, with more of a neighborhood feel, for vintage linens, silver, collectibles, the occasional treasure.

The afternoon is free: maybe you’ll return to Bon Marché, find a museum you’ve been meaning to visit, relax on a café terrace, or leisurely begin the process of fitting everything you’ve acquired into your bags.

Included: Breakfast, dinner

Departure day. It’s a bittersweet farewell. we’re all sad to leave, but the memories are priceless and will stay with you. As Bogie once said, “We’ll always have Paris.”

Included: Breakfast