Paris on a Sunday: What Actually Is Open

The Louvre is open on Sundays from 09:00 to 18:00, with last entry one hour before closing, and closed on Tuesdays. There is no free first Sunday at the Louvre: free admission applies on the first Friday of the month after 18:00 (not in July and August) and on 14 July. Time-slot booking is recommended, free visitors included. A Sunday Louvre needs a booked slot, not optimism.

The Musée d'Orsay is open Tuesday to Sunday from 09:30 to 18:00, with a late evening until 21:45 on Thursdays, and closed on Mondays. On the first Sunday of the month entry is free for everyone, with a mandatory free time-slot booking, according to the museum's official site.

The Musée de l'Orangerie is open every day except Tuesday from 09:00 to 18:00. On the first Sunday of the month it is free for all, and online time-slot booking is mandatory. Eight Water Lilies panels in a small building are the reason people queue.

The Musée Rodin is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 18:30, last admission 17:45. It offers free admission on the first Sunday of each month from October to March, and no advance booking is required. From April to September, the first Sunday is an ordinary Sunday there.

A first Sunday between October and March is the day when the Orsay, the Orangerie and the Musée Rodin are all free, and also the day when their queues are longest. Pick one, book it first and build the rest of the day around it.

Shops in Paris's international tourist zones, which include the Marais, are allowed to open on Sundays all year, according to the Ville de Paris page, last updated on 17 January 2025. Allowed does not mean obliged: the employer needs an agreement with staff first, so individual shops in the zone still decide. MEVAYA has no verified Sunday data for shops outside these zones.

Three small stops are marked closed on Sundays in MEVAYA's data: Boulangerie Terroirs d'Avenir, Au Bourguignon du Marais and Le 18 Oberkampf, whose own description says closed Sunday and Monday. All three are typical-class, so no official source backs the closure. Read them as a warning and call before you go.

The route above is what the MEVAYA planner builds for Sunday 4 October 2026: five stops and a lunch break, about 4.0 km on foot and 3.4 km by public transport in one hop, from 09:00 to 17:21. It starts with the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadéro esplanade, then the Arc de Triomphe at 12:26, lunch, the Palais Garnier at 14:40 and the Musée de l'Orangerie at 16:12. The tower opens at 09:30, so the 09:00 start includes half an hour at the entrance.

If your Sunday is the first of the month and you want the Orangerie, book the free slot first and build the day around it. The route's 16:12 arrival is a suggestion, and a free-day slot may land at another hour.

Lunch is a 60-minute break after the Arc de Triomphe, not a reservation. Restaurants in MEVAYA's Paris data are typical-class stops, so their Sunday hours are not verified. Book a table, and choose one that lists Sunday opening.

Paris keeps its big museums open on Sundays and closes them on other days: the Louvre and the Orangerie on Tuesday, the Orsay and the Rodin on Monday. If your trip covers a Sunday and a Tuesday, put the Louvre on the Sunday. The Tuesday guide lists what stays open then.

The reliable Sunday plan in Paris is a booked museum in the morning, an open-air stop and a long lunch you have called ahead for. Paris has enough to see that the list of closures is the shorter one.