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We fell in love with Paris the way you fall in love with someone at the wrong time — underprepared, slightly ill, and completely broke. This is our Paris honeymoon story, and almost none of it went to plan.

It was late May. We were at the tail end of two and a half months in Europe, running on fumes and an increasingly fictional budget. Somewhere in Italy, in a moment of staggering optimism, one of us had shipped all the warm clothes home. It was almost June, after all. How cold could Paris possibly be?

Four degrees. Paris could be four degrees.

Paris at a Glance

You know what Paris is. Everyone knows what Paris is. The Eiffel Tower, the Seine, the pastries, the attitude. It doesn't need an introduction — it has better PR than any city on earth.

What nobody tells you is that Parisian spring can be a lie. The postcards show cherry blossoms and golden light. The reality, at least in late May the year we went, was relentless grey skies, horizontal rain, and the kind of damp cold that gets into your bones and sets up permanent residence.

Getting there: Fly into Charles de Gaulle (CDG) for international flights, or Orly (ORY) for European connections. The RER B train runs from CDG to central Paris in about 35 minutes for around €11. It's not glamorous, but it works.

Best time to visit: April through June and September through October — in theory. July and August are hot, crowded, and half of Paris is on holiday somewhere else. December is cold but magical if you like Christmas markets and mulled wine. And apparently, late May can be winter. We have photographic evidence.

Where to Stay in Paris for Couples — A Balcony Worth Shivering For

We'd booked an Airbnb in the Latin Quarter, and it was one of the best decisions of the entire trip. The building was old in that deeply Parisian way — worn stone staircase, iron railings, the faint smell of someone else's dinner drifting through the corridors. Our apartment was small, warm, and had a balcony that looked out over a quiet side street lined with plane trees.

Every morning, we sat on that balcony with croissants and coffee, wrapped in every layer we owned — which at this point was a summer dress, a thin cardigan, and sheer determination. Below us, actual Parisians walked to work in proper coats, looking at us with the specific pity the French reserve for people who have made obviously poor decisions.

The kitchen saved us financially. After ten weeks of travel, the budget was more of a polite suggestion than an actual number, so we cooked most of our meals from ingredients bought at the markets. Bread, cheese, wine, tomatoes. If this is poverty, we'll take it.

For couples considering Paris on a budget, we'd genuinely recommend an apartment over a hotel. The Latin Quarter puts you within walking distance of everything — Notre Dame, the Seine, the Panthéon — and having your own kitchen means you can spend your restaurant budget on the meals that matter. If you want something more polished, Hôtel des Grands Boulevards has a rooftop bar and bohemian-chic interiors that would have tempted us if our bank account had been speaking to us. And for an actual splurge, Le Pavillon de la Reine is tucked behind Place des Vosges in the Marais — a courtyard garden, quiet rooms, and the feeling of having found something the rest of Paris doesn't know about.

Romantic Paris Beyond the Monuments

Here's what surprised us about Paris: it wasn't the monuments that got us. It was the in-between bits.

We spent most of our time wandering — partly because wandering is free, partly because we kept getting lost, and partly because Paris rewards people who don't have a plan. Around every corner was something we hadn't been looking for. A bookshop with a cat sleeping on a first edition. A wine bar the size of a cupboard with exactly four seats and a man behind the counter who looked like he'd been pouring Burgundy since the Revolution. A flea market where we bought absolutely nothing but touched absolutely everything.

This is the Paris that hooked us. Not the Eiffel Tower Paris (though we got to that). Not the Champs-Élysées Paris. The weird Paris. The Paris of oddly specific boutiques and cafés where nobody's in a hurry and the espresso is strong enough to be a personality trait.

If you're the kind of couple that would rather find a tiny wine bar than queue for the Louvre, consider a Montmartre wine tasting and walking tour — it formalises the thing we stumbled into by accident, minus the getting-lost part. For the flea-market lovers, a Paris flea market and vintage shopping tour covers the Marché aux Puces and spots you'd never find alone.

Kissing at Landmarks (Because You Have To)

Look — you can't go to Paris as a couple and not do the tourist things. It's in the contract. So we kissed in front of the Eiffel Tower. Obviously. It was raining. One of us was shivering so violently the photos are slightly blurred. Still romantic.

We walked the Champs-Élysées in a state of underdressed disbelief. Parisian women glided past in tailored coats, some carrying small dogs in handbags, looking as if they'd never been cold in their lives. We ducked into luxury boutiques purely for the heating, where one of us found a pair of shoes that cost close to €3,000 and fell deeply, tragically in love. We did not buy the shoes. We think about the shoes often.

The Seine was beautiful even in the grey — maybe especially in the grey. There's something about Paris in bad weather that strips away the postcard veneer and leaves something more real. The water was dark and fast, the bridges were empty, and the bouquinistes along the banks had their stalls half-shut against the rain. We bought nothing. We walked for hours.

One evening, from the apartment balcony, we caught the Eiffel Tower's nightly light show in the distance. Every hour on the hour, the entire tower erupts into thousands of sparkling lights for five minutes. We hadn't planned to see it. We just looked up from our wine, and there it was, glittering against the grey sky like a firework that forgot to go out.

That was the moment. Right there.

Visiting the Louvre in the Evening (After Tequila)

We're going to share something here that we're not sure we should be proud of, but it genuinely worked: visit the Louvre in the evening, after drinks.

It was a Thursday. We'd been in a bar since late afternoon — the rain had chased us in, and the tequila had kept us there. By the time we stumbled to the Louvre at around 7pm, the queues were gone. Not short. Gone. We walked straight in.

The museum at night, nearly empty, is a completely different experience from the daytime crush. We had entire galleries to ourselves. The ceilings alone are worth the visit — vast, painted, overwhelming in a way that's hard to process even sober. (Mildly drunk, they were transcendent.)

We found the Mona Lisa, naturally. She's smaller than you expect. She looked, if we're being honest, significantly more impressive after three tequilas. There was a velvet rope and about four other people. It was civilised.

But the real discovery was everything else. The mummified animals. The Mesopotamian antiquities. Venus de Milo, arms conspicuously absent, looking unbothered by the whole thing. We spent two hours wandering in a state of slightly blurry awe and regret nothing.

The Louvre stays open until 9:45pm on Wednesdays and Fridays. If you want a more structured experience (or if you prefer to arrive sober), a skip-the-line Louvre evening tour gets you in without the queue and with someone who actually knows what they're looking at.

The morning after

Notre Dame was supposed to happen the next day. We had plans. Ambitious plans. Plans that involved climbing 387 steps to the top for a panoramic view of Paris.

Reader, we did not climb Notre Dame. The tequila had consequences, and those consequences involved staying in bed until noon and then shuffling to the nearest boulangerie for emergency pain au chocolat.

We don't regret the Louvre decision. We mildly regret the tequila quantity.

Eating in Paris on a Honeymoon Budget

As mentioned: we were broke. Emphatically, unambiguously broke. Fine dining was not on the table. What was on the table — our wobbly little Airbnb table on the balcony — was market bread, supermarket cheese, and wine that cost less than the metro ticket to buy it. And honestly? Some of our best meals in Paris happened right there.

But we didn't come to Paris to eat at home every night. So we picked our moments.

The escargot were the revelation. We'd been slightly afraid of them — not of the taste, more of the concept — but they arrived drowning in garlic butter and parsley, and they were extraordinary. Rich, tender, swimming in enough butter to make a cardiologist weep. We ordered a second plate. No regrets.

We tried onion soup that tasted like it had been simmering since the Middle Ages — dark, deeply savoury, buried under a crust of melted Gruyère that stretched in long threads from the spoon. We had crêpes from a stand near the Latin Quarter that cost almost nothing and tasted like everything. We ate steak tartare because when in France, you eat raw beef and pretend you've always been the kind of person who does that. And crème brûlée, obviously. Always crème brûlée.

For couples willing to plan a proper food experience, a Saint-Germain chocolate and pastry walking tour hits the sweet spots (literally) without breaking the budget. And if you want to bring something home beyond a hangover, a French cooking class for couples teaches you to make the things you'll spend the rest of your life trying to recreate.

Getting Sick, Getting Real

By day three, the cold caught up with us. Turns out that walking around in a cotton skirt and a cardigan for three days in near-freezing rain has consequences that go beyond looking foolish.

We spent most of the last two days in the apartment, wrapped in the duvet, drinking pharmacy-grade cold medicine and watching the rain streak down the balcony door. It should have been miserable. In a way, it was. But there's also something unexpectedly intimate about being ill together in a small Parisian apartment — making soup from whatever's left in the fridge, reading aloud to each other from a water-damaged paperback we'd found at the flea market, falling asleep at four in the afternoon.

Not what we'd planned. Not what anyone pictures when they imagine a romantic trip to Paris. But real, in a way the monuments and the landmarks never quite are.

The journey home was 30 hours of sniffling misery — Finnair, in their infinite wisdom, provided a broken entertainment system for the eleven-hour leg to Melbourne. We stared at the back of the seat in front of us. We felt sorry for ourselves. We were already planning when to come back.

If you've read our Maldives honeymoon guide, you'll know we're no strangers to trips that surprise us. Paris was a different kind of surprise — less turquoise water, more grey sky — but the feeling of stumbling into something you didn't know you needed was exactly the same.

Things You Might Be Wondering

How much does a Paris honeymoon cost?

A Paris honeymoon for two can cost as little as €100–€150 per day if you stay in an Airbnb, cook some meals, and walk everywhere. A mid-range trip with boutique hotels and bistro dinners runs €250–€400 per day. Luxury — five-star hotels, Michelin restaurants, Seine dinner cruises — starts at €600+ per day. We spent roughly four days in Paris for around €500 total, including accommodation, and ate extremely well (mostly from markets).

Is Paris good for honeymoons?

Paris is one of the best cities in the world for a honeymoon. The food, the architecture, the atmosphere — it's romantic without trying to be. Even when the weather was terrible and we were broke and sick, the city still got us. The key is to treat it as a slow trip, not a sightseeing sprint. Wander, eat, drink, and let Paris do the rest.

What is the best area to stay in Paris for couples?

The Latin Quarter (5th arrondissement) is where we stayed and where we'd stay again — walkable to everything, full of character, and more affordable than the touristy centre. The Marais (3rd/4th) is stylish and central. Montmartre (18th) is romantic and hilly with artist-quarter charm. Saint-Germain-des-Prés (6th) is classic Left Bank elegance. All four are excellent for couples.

How many days do you need in Paris for a honeymoon?

We'd recommend five to seven days. We had four and it wasn't enough — especially since we lost two to illness. Even without the setbacks, Paris rewards slow exploration. Five days gives you time for the major sights, some lazy café mornings, and at least one or two unplanned discoveries.

Practical Notes

Getting around

The Paris Métro is excellent — it goes everywhere, runs frequently, and costs about €2 per trip (or ~€16 for a day pass). The stations themselves are an experience — some are beautifully tiled, others smell like they haven't been cleaned since the Napoleonic era. Walking is better when the weather cooperates. It did not cooperate for us.

How long to spend

We had four days and it wasn't enough — partly because we lost two to illness, but even healthy, we'd want at least five to six. Paris reveals itself slowly, and the best bits tend to appear when you stop rushing.

Budget

• Accommodation: Budget €80–€180/night for a decent Airbnb or budget hotel. Mid-range boutique hotels run €180–€350. Luxury starts at €500 and goes up from there sharply
• Food: Market picnics from €10–€15 for two. A proper sit-down bistro meal runs €30–€50 per person. Street crêpes from €3–€5
• Transport: Budget €5–€15/day depending on how much you walk
• Museums: The Louvre is €17 per person (free on Friday evenings for under-26s). Consider the Paris Museum Pass if you're planning multiple museum visits

Language

English is widely spoken, especially in tourist areas and by younger Parisians. The old reputation for rudeness — or rather, for refusing to speak English on principle — seems to have softened. We got by entirely in English. That said: "bonjour" and "merci" go a long way. Start every interaction with "bonjour" and the whole thing goes smoother.

Safety

Standard big-city awareness. Pickpocketing is common around the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and busy Métro stations. Keep valuables close. Don't leave your phone on café tables. The Métro is safe during the day and mostly fine at night, but trust your instincts.

Pack for the weather you'll actually get

Do not — we repeat, do not — ship your warm clothes home from Italy because you think it'll be warm by late May. Bring layers. Bring a rain jacket. Bring real shoes. Learn from our shivering.

The Honest Summary

Our Paris trip was objectively a mess. The weather was terrible. We were underdressed, underfunded, and eventually unwell. We missed half the things we'd planned. We ate most of our meals standing in a tiny kitchen in our pyjamas.

And yet.

Paris got us anyway. It got us through the bookshops and the wine bars and the grey light over the Seine. Through the garlic butter and the sparkling tower and the Louvre at night with nobody in it. Through a balcony in the Latin Quarter where we sat every morning eating croissants in the cold because the view was too good to go inside.

Paris doesn't need you to arrive prepared. It doesn't need sunshine or a plan or a budget. It just needs you to show up and pay attention.

We'd go back in a heartbeat. Next time with a coat.