Are you in Paris this weekend of October 23–25, 2026? Read my selection of the best things to do. This is contemporary art week, and it is the single best weekend of the year to be here if you like looking at things. Art Basel Paris opens the Grand Palais to the public for three days; Art Shopping takes over the Carrousel du Louvre with free weekend entry; a free sound-and-light installation runs in the Grand Palais rotunda with no fair ticket needed; and the galleries of the Marais and rue de Matignon have all hung new shows, which you can walk into for nothing.
There are two other reasons this weekend is unusual. The NFL plays its first ever regular-season game in France on Sunday afternoon, with the New Orleans Saints hosting the Pittsburgh Steelers at the Stade de France. And the autumn museum season has just doubled: the Musée d’Orsay opened two major exhibitions in three weeks, the big Mary Cassatt retrospective and a Jenny Holzer installation, and both are open all weekend. Add Monet at the Orangerie, Cezanne at the Grand Palais, Warhol at the Musée du Luxembourg, Schwitters at the Picasso Museum, Nadar twenty metres underground in the Catacombs, and the Versace retrospective in its second-to-last weekend before it closes on October 31.
Now the thing nobody tells visitors: the clocks go back one hour overnight on Saturday 24 to Sunday 25. At 3am it becomes 2am — you gain an hour of sleep and lose an hour of daylight.
Read also our selection of the best things to do in Paris for a first visit
Exhibitions on Right Now
Nine shows, all open Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Closing days catch out more visitors than anything else in Paris, so: the Musée d’Orsay, the Picasso Museum, the Grand Palais, the Catacombs and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs all close on Mondays; the Fondation Louis Vuitton and the Bourse de Commerce close on Tuesdays; the Louvre closes on Tuesdays. The Musée du Luxembourg and the Musée Maillol are open every day.
Mary Cassatt, L’indépendante, at the Musée d’Orsay
Why go: the only American in the Impressionist group, the only woman Degas treated as an equal, and a painter most people know through three pictures of mothers and children when the work is far tougher and far more modern than that. The French title means “Cassatt the independent”, and the show takes the word seriously: she chose not to marry, lived off her own work, and exhibited with the independents. The wall texts are in French and English, and painting needs no translation anyway.
When: October 6, 2026 to January 31, 2027 — open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 9.30am to 6pm, closed Mondays
Where: Musée d’Orsay, 1 rue de la Légion d’Honneur, 7th arrondissement, on the Left Bank facing the Tuileries
Getting there: RER C to Musée d’Orsay, metro line 12 to Solférino; a 10-minute walk from the Louvre across the Léopold-Sédar-Senghor footbridge
Cost: around €16 full price, €13 reduced, timed ticket including the permanent collections, free under 18 and free for under-26s resident in the EEA; included in the Paris Museum Pass but you must still book a slot — the exhibition page on the Musée d’Orsay website
Tip: book the first slot of the day, then go straight up to the fifth floor and the Impressionist galleries before you see Cassatt. Everyone does it the other way round, and by 11am the great Impressionist gallery is solid with people while the temporary show still has air in it. You get Degas, Morisot and Caillebotte in peace, and then you meet Cassatt with exactly the context you need to see what she is doing differently.
Jenny Holzer, J’AI VU, at the Musée d’Orsay
Why go: for forty years Jenny Holzer has written short sentences and sent them scrolling in light across LED bars, stone benches and whole building façades. She has now been given the Musée d’Orsay — a nineteenth-century railway station full of nineteenth-century painting — and the friction between her electronic words and those rooms is the point. It is an exhibition you read as much as look at, and you leave with two or three sentences stuck to you. The texts are shown in French and English.
When: October 20, 2026 to February 21, 2027 — open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 9.30am to 6pm, closed Mondays, late opening Thursday until 9.45pm
Where: Musée d’Orsay, 1 rue de la Légion d’Honneur, 7th arrondissement
Getting there: RER C to Musée d’Orsay, metro line 12 to Solférino
Cost: around €16 full price, €13 reduced, €12 for the late opening; one timed ticket covers Holzer, Cassatt and the permanent collections —
Tip: one ticket, two exhibitions, so do both in a single visit rather than two trips — but not in the same hour. See Cassatt first, take a coffee behind the great clock on the top floor, then go to Holzer: her texts need an attention you no longer have after two hours of painting. One correction if you read about them elsewhere: the light projections on the Seine-side façade finished on October 22, so this weekend everything is indoors.
Monet, Painting Time, at the Musée de l’Orangerie
Why go: the centenary exhibition marking a hundred years since Monet’s death, installed directly above the two oval rooms that hold the Water Lilies. Its subject is time itself: how you paint a single instant, a light that is already changing, the same haystack at six different moments. You go upstairs to see the investigation and back downstairs to see the result, and that round trip is the whole point of the visit.
When: September 30, 2026 to January 25, 2027 — open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, closed Tuesdays
Where: Musée de l’Orangerie, Jardin des Tuileries, at the place de la Concorde end, 1st arrondissement
Getting there: metro lines 1, 8 and 12 to Concorde, then a five-minute walk through the garden; a 15-minute walk from the Louvre along the Tuileries
Cost: museum admission with a timed slot booked online; the Paris Museum Pass is accepted but you still need to reserve a time
Tip: book the first slot of the day and go downstairs first. Everyone does the opposite, heading straight for the temporary show, and the oval rooms fill up from about 11am. Arrive at opening, go down, and you get twenty minutes alone in front of the big panels — the only state in which that room does what Monet designed it to do. The Tuileries on the way out are worth half an hour in late October, while the chestnuts are turning.
Cezanne and Us, at the Grand Palais
Why go: 180 works, and the argument is not Cezanne alone but everything he made possible afterwards — Cubism, abstraction, a good half of the twentieth century. Organised by the Centre Pompidou in the restored nave of the Grand Palais, it sets the apples, the bathers and Mont Sainte-Victoire against the painters who came out of them. It is in the same building as Art Basel this weekend, so the two can be done in one day.
When: September 23, 2026 to January 17, 2027 — Friday until 10pm, Saturday and Sunday 10am to 7.30pm, closed Mondays
Where: Grand Palais, entrance at square Jean Perrin, 17 avenue du Général Eisenhower, 8th arrondissement
Getting there: metro lines 1 and 13 to Champs-Élysées-Clemenceau, line 9 to Franklin D. Roosevelt; a 12-minute walk from Invalides on RER C, about 10 minutes on foot from the Champs-Élysées
Cost: around €19 full price, €16 reduced with proof; not covered by the Paris Museum Pass
Tip: take the Friday late slot, but after 7.30pm rather than at 7 — with Art Basel in the nave the same day, the approaches to the Grand Palais are gridlocked until the fair closes. Come later and the exhibition runs at half the density of Saturday afternoon, with the neighbourhood emptied out. Keep half an hour for the nave itself on the way out; since the restoration it is one of the great interiors in Paris, and it is different at night.
Andy Warhol: The Line and the Image, at the Musée du Luxembourg
Why go: the Warhol nobody expects — the one from before the soup cans. Long before the silkscreen factory, he spent a decade earning a living as a fashion illustrator, working in line and ink with an elegance that Pop art erased from the record entirely. The show follows that thread, and it is a revelation even if you thought you had seen everything he did. Purely visual, open every single day, and small enough to do in an hour.
When: September 16, 2026 to January 10, 2027 — open daily 10.30am to 7pm, late opening Monday until 10pm
Where: Musée du Luxembourg, 19 rue de Vaugirard, 6th arrondissement, on the edge of the Jardin du Luxembourg
Getting there: metro line 4 to Saint-Sulpice or Odéon, line 10 to Mabillon, RER B to Luxembourg directly opposite; a 10-minute walk from the Panthéon
Cost: €14 full price, €10 reduced, free under 16; not covered by the Paris Museum Pass
Tip: the museum is small, which is both its charm and its problem — allow an hour, and come either before noon or after 5pm. Then use the address: you walk straight out into the Jardin du Luxembourg, which is at its best in late October with the chestnuts turning and the green chairs still out. It is the easiest exhibition-plus-garden combination in Paris, as long as you do it before 5.30pm on Sunday, when darkness arrives at 5.42pm.
Kurt Schwitters: The World in Chaos, at the Picasso Museum
Why go: more than 300 works in the first major Schwitters retrospective in France for thirty years. He invented modern collage, made art out of tram tickets and wrappers picked up off the street, and spent years building a cathedral of debris inside his own flat until it burst through the ceiling. It is the direct ancestor of most of what you will see at Art Basel this weekend. No French needed: it is a show about surfaces, scraps and typography, with English wall texts.
When: October 6, 2026 to February 7, 2027 — Tuesday to Sunday, 9.30am to 6pm, closed Mondays
Where: Musée national Picasso-Paris, Hôtel Salé, 5 rue de Thorigny, 3rd arrondissement, in the Marais
Getting there: metro line 8 to Saint-Sébastien-Froissart, line 1 to Saint-Paul, line 3 to Temple; a five-minute walk from place des Vosges
Cost: €0 to €16 depending on eligibility, advance booking required; included in the Paris Museum Pass, but you must still reserve a slot
Tip: the museum opens at 9.30am, which is early by Paris standards, and almost nobody uses it — the first Saturday slot is routinely half empty. Allow an hour and a half, no more; it is a dense show and you will stop seeing things. Then walk up rue de Thorigny and rue du Parc-Royal to place des Vosges, five minutes away. Every gallery in the Marais has hung a new show for Art Basel week, they are all free to walk into, and this is the weekend to do exactly that.
Gustave Fayet, Collector and Creator, at the Fondation Louis Vuitton
Why go: the portrait of a man almost nobody has heard of who bought Van Gogh, Gauguin and Redon before anyone else wanted them, while painting himself and designing carpets on the side. The loans are spectacular and the Frank Gehry building is a destination in its own right. It was free last weekend for LVMH’s open-doors event; that has finished, so this time you pay — but the roof terraces over the Bois de Boulogne are worth the trip on their own.
When: October 9, 2026 to March 8, 2027 — Friday 11am to 9pm, Saturday and Sunday 10am to 8pm, closed Tuesdays
Where: Fondation Louis Vuitton, 8 avenue du Mahatma Gandhi, Bois de Boulogne, 16th arrondissement
Getting there: metro line 1 to Les Sablons, then a 10-minute walk through the Jardin d’Acclimatation, or the Fondation shuttle from avenue de Friedland near the Arc de Triomphe
Cost: €18 full price, €5 to €10 reduced, free under 3; never covered by the Paris Museum Pass — Fondation Louis Vuitton official website
Tip: come late on Friday afternoon. The Fondation stays open until 9pm that day, the low sun through Gehry’s glass sails is the building’s best argument, and the families have gone home by six. Go up to the roof terraces before the exhibition, not after: they close earlier than the galleries, and most visitors find them shut. Friday is also the last evening this year with real daylight at 6.30pm — after the clocks go back, a late-afternoon visit happens in the dark.
Nadar: Inventing Paris, in the Catacombs
Why go: Nadar was the first person to photograph Paris from above, from a balloon, and the first to photograph it from below, in the sewers and the quarries — he had to invent artificial lighting to manage it. The exhibition is staged in the exact place he made those underground pictures, twenty metres beneath the 14th arrondissement, which is the cleverest piece of curating in Paris this autumn: you look at his photographs of the tunnels while standing in the tunnels. A week before Halloween, the setting does the rest.
When: September 29, 2026 to January 31, 2027 — Tuesday to Sunday, 9.45am to 8.30pm, last entry 7.30pm, closed Mondays
Where: Catacombes de Paris, 1 avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy, place Denfert-Rochereau, 14th arrondissement
Getting there: metro lines 4 and 6 to Denfert-Rochereau, RER B to Denfert-Rochereau — which is also the direct RER line from Charles de Gaulle airport
Cost: standard Catacombs admission, included in the exhibition ticket, online booking strongly advised; the Paris Museum Pass covers the Catacombs but a timed slot is still required
Tip: book, genuinely. The Catacombs cap the number of people underground, and during the French half-term the weekend slots go several days ahead — people who turn up without a ticket are sent away. Take a late slot, around 6pm: those stay available longest and the route is much quieter. It is 14 °C down there all year whatever the weather above, so bring a jacket, and wear closed shoes because the floor is wet. There are 131 steps down and 112 back up, with no lift.
Gianni Versace Retrospective, at the Musée Maillol — second-to-last weekend
Why go: the show closes on October 31, so this weekend and the next are all that is left. 450 pieces in the first big Versace retrospective in France since 1986: the safety-pin dresses, the baroque prints, the archive of a designer murdered in 1997. It was already extended once because demand outran the building, and it will not be extended again. Open every day, and entirely visual.
When: until Saturday, October 31, 2026 — daily 10.30am to 6.30pm, late opening Thursday until 10pm
Where: Musée Maillol, 59-61 rue de Grenelle, 7th arrondissement, Saint-Germain-des-Prés
Getting there: metro line 12 to Rue du Bac, lines 10 and 12 to Sèvres-Babylone, line 4 to Saint-Sulpice; a 10-minute walk from the Musée d’Orsay
Cost: from around €18.90, varying by slot and eligibility; not covered by the Paris Museum Pass
Tip: book for this weekend, not the final one. The last days of a fashion show always sell out, and the Maillol is small — once there are fifty people in a room you can no longer see the embroidery, which is the entire reason to go. Best slot: Sunday at opening, 10.30am. Afterwards, rue de Grenelle and rue du Bac are the most pleasant hour of window-shopping on the Left Bank, and the Musée d’Orsay is ten minutes away on foot.
Don’t Miss This Weekend
Three things that happen this weekend and not the next one: an international art fair that will not return for a year, a trade show that shuts on Sunday evening, and a game that has never been played in this country before.
Art Basel Paris, at the Grand Palais
Why go: this is the largest gathering of contemporary art in France all year, and its three public days fall exactly on this weekend. Galleries from all over the world hang their stands under the restored glass roof of the Grand Palais, and you see in one afternoon what would otherwise take months of travelling. Nobody around you will be buying anything either — that is not the point. It is the best possible way to take the temperature of what is being made now, in a building that justifies the trip by itself.
When: Friday 23 to Sunday 25 October 2026, 11am to 7pm all three days
Where: Grand Palais, avenue Winston-Churchill, 8th arrondissement
Getting there: metro lines 1 and 13 to Champs-Élysées-Clemenceau, line 9 to Franklin D. Roosevelt; a 10-minute walk down the Champs-Élysées from the Arc de Triomphe end
Cost: around €45 full price, €30 reduced, €38 for a late-day ticket — visitor information and tickets on the official Art Basel Paris site
Tip: go Friday at 11am opening. By Saturday afternoon the central aisles are impassable and you spend more time going around groups than looking at work. And do not try to see it all: walk the whole fair once without stopping, mark three or four stands, then go back to those properly. That is the only method that works at this scale. If the ticket price stops you, the free installation described further down is in the same building and needs no fair ticket at all.
The NFL Paris Game at the Stade de France, Sunday
Why go: the first regular-season NFL game ever played in France. The New Orleans Saints host the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday afternoon at the Stade de France, with the full apparatus: halftime show, pre-game entertainment, and several thousand American fans who have flown in for it. Whether or not you follow the sport, an 80,000-seat stadium on a Sunday afternoon is an event in itself, and this particular one will not come round again soon.
When: Sunday, October 25, 2026, kick-off at 2.30pm Paris time
Where: Stade de France, avenue Jules Rimet, Saint-Denis, just north of the Paris city line
Getting there: RER B to La Plaine-Stade de France, RER D to Stade de France-Saint-Denis, metro line 13 to Saint-Denis-Porte de Paris; about 20 minutes from Châtelet and covered by a standard Paris travel pass
Cost: varies widely by seat, online booking only — official Stade de France ticketing for the NFL Paris Game
Tip: the clocks go back the night before, so double-check anything you have set for Sunday morning — your phone will have moved, your hotel alarm clock will not, and a 2.30pm kick-off is easy to miss by an hour in the wrong direction. An NFL game runs a little over three hours with stoppages, so plan to come out around 6pm, in the dark. Take RER D rather than RER B: it drops you closer to the ground and is reliably less crowded on the way out.
Paris Games Week — final weekend
Why go: the fifteenth edition of France’s big video game show, and it closes on Sunday evening. The halls at Porte de Versailles fill with playable stands, esports stages, cosplay competitions and premieres. Games are the least language-dependent thing in this guide, which makes it one of the easiest large French events to attend without speaking French — and a reliable rescue plan if you are here with teenagers in the rain.
When: until Sunday, October 25, 2026 — open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 9.30am to 7pm
Where: Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, 1 place de la Porte de Versailles, 15th arrondissement
Getting there: metro line 12 to Porte de Versailles, trams T2 and T3a to Porte de Versailles; from Orly, tram T3a, and from Charles de Gaulle, RER B then tram T3a
Cost: around €29 for an adult day ticket, €20 for ages 8 to 25, €80 for a family pass, free under 8 with booking; online only — Paris Games Week on the Paris tourist office website
Tip: take Friday, and be there at 9.30am. On Saturday the big publishers’ stands are posting 90-minute waits by 11am, and on Sunday everyone wants in before closing. On Friday morning you can play almost everything in three hours. One useful trick: start at the far end of the hall and work back towards the entrance, because the crowd flows the other way. Buy online before you leave — there is no meaningful box office on site.
Concerts, Shows and Evenings Out
All three of these work without a word of French: a drum show with no dialogue at all, flamenco sung in Spanish, and a choral masterpiece sung in German.
Miguel Poveda at the Philharmonie, Sunday
Why go: one of the greatest living flamenco cantaores, the singer who pulled flamenco out of its habits without ever betraying it, performing with guitarist Jesús Guerrero. The programme follows his album drawn from Federico García Lorca’s Poema del cante jondo: ninety minutes of a naked voice carried by a single guitar, in a hall built for exactly that. He sings in Spanish, which is the point — this is music you feel rather than parse, and if you have only ever heard flamenco as restaurant background, this is the evening that fixes that.
When: Sunday, October 25, 2026 at 6pm
Where: Philharmonie de Paris, Grande salle Pierre Boulez, 221 avenue Jean-Jaurès, 19th arrondissement
Getting there: metro line 5 to Porte de Pantin, tram T3b to Porte de Pantin; about 25 minutes from Châtelet
Cost: €30 to €48 depending on where you sit — the Miguel Poveda concert listing on L’Officiel des spectacles
Tip: a 6pm concert is perfectly judged for an autumn Sunday — you are out by 7.30pm with dinner still possible. Be aware that this is the day the clocks go back, so it will be fully dark when you come out: the Parc de la Villette behind the building is not the post-concert stroll tonight, take line 5 directly. For a solo voice and guitar, the cheapest seats are excellent; this hall carries sound everywhere.
Fills Monkey, We Will Drum You, at L’Olympia, Saturday
Why go: two drummers, not a single word spoken, and two hours that go by like twenty minutes. Fills Monkey have built an entire show out of percussion and physical comedy, they have been touring it worldwide for twenty years, and they are marking that anniversary on the stage of L’Olympia — the most famous music hall in Paris, where Edith Piaf and the Beatles played. Completely wordless, so nothing is lost in translation, and it works for anyone from about seven to seventy.
When: Saturday, October 24, 2026, evening performance
Where: L’Olympia, 28 boulevard des Capucines, 9th arrondissement, near the Opéra Garnier
Getting there: metro lines 3, 7 and 8 to Opéra, line 8 to Madeleine, RER A to Auber; a five-minute walk from the Opéra Garnier
Cost: varies by seat, online booking
Tip: standing room in the pit is wrong for this show. It is as visual as it is loud, and you want to see both drum kits straight on and slightly from above, so aim for the centre of the first balcony. And since this is the night the clocks go back, you come out around 11pm into a night that is an hour longer than usual — the right evening to carry on towards the Grands Boulevards, where the bars stay open late.
Brahms, A German Requiem, at the Philharmonie, Friday
Why go: Brahms’s great choral work, the one he wrote not for the dead but for those left behind — the text is in German, taken from Luther’s Bible, and the subject is consolation rather than judgement. Around seventy-five minutes of one of the summits of the repertoire, in the Grande salle Pierre Boulez, which is the best-sounding concert hall in the city. Late October, at nightfall, is a well-chosen moment for it.
When: Friday, October 23, 2026 at 8pm
Where: Philharmonie de Paris, Grande salle Pierre Boulez, 221 avenue Jean-Jaurès, 19th arrondissement
Getting there: metro line 5 to Porte de Pantin, tram T3b to Porte de Pantin
Cost: varies by seat, online booking — Philharmonie de Paris box office
Tip: for a choral work, take the high side seats rather than the stalls. You hear the choir as a single body instead of getting the front row of sopranos in your ear, and it costs two to three times less. Arrive twenty minutes early: the Philharmonie closes its doors strictly on time, and latecomers wait in the foyer until the end of the first movement.
Free Things to Do This Weekend
Three that cost nothing, and this is an unusually good weekend for it: every commercial gallery in the Marais and around rue de Matignon has hung a new show for Art Basel week, and walking into all of them is free. For the permanent list, see our guide to free things to do in Paris.
God Hates Space, Gener8ion’s installation at the Grand Palais — free
Why go: Gener8ion, the duo of musician Surkin and film-maker Romain Gavras, have installed an immersive audiovisual piece under the Rotonde d’Antin at the Grand Palais: heavy sound, monumental images, and the volume of the rotunda as a resonating chamber. It is programmed as part of Art Basel, but admission is free and completely separate from the fair ticket, which makes it the best deal of the weekend — you walk into the Grand Palais for nothing.
When: October 22 to 25, 2026 — open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with a late opening until 10.30pm on Friday
Where: Grand Palais, Rotonde d’Antin, Entrance 4, avenue Winston-Churchill, 8th arrondissement
Getting there: metro lines 1 and 13 to Champs-Élysées-Clemenceau, line 9 to Franklin D. Roosevelt
Cost: free, entry via the Rotonde d’Antin with no fair ticket required — the installation presented on the Art Basel website
Tip: come Friday for the late opening, after 8pm. It is a piece made of sound and light: it works far better once it is dark outside and the rotunda is half empty, and that is precisely the slot nobody takes. Ten minutes is enough if it does not speak to you, half an hour if it catches you. And since you are already there, carry on into the Friday late opening of the Cezanne exhibition in the same building.
Art Shopping at the Carrousel du Louvre — free at the weekend
Why go: the autumn edition of an affordable contemporary art fair, held in the underground gallery beside the inverted pyramid of the Carrousel du Louvre. Hundreds of artists and small galleries sell directly, at prices running from a few hundred to a few thousand euros — which is to say the exact opposite of Art Basel, ten minutes’ walk away. Entry is free on Saturday and Sunday with a ticket you download beforehand.
When: Friday 23 to Sunday 25 October 2026 — Friday by invitation, Saturday and Sunday open to everyone
Where: Carrousel du Louvre, 99 rue de Rivoli, 1st arrondissement, directly under the Louvre
Getting there: metro lines 1 and 7 to Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre, line 1 to Tuileries
Cost: free on Saturday and Sunday with the downloadable ticket; buy nothing if you like
Tip: do both fairs on the same day, in this order: Art Shopping in the morning, where the artists are standing at their own stands and will happily talk to you, then Art Basel in the afternoon, where nobody will. You understand the second far better for having seen the first. It is a ten-minute walk between the two through the Tuileries, and that walk is one of the best things about late October in Paris.
Little Villette’s games weekend, for families — free
Why go: Little Villette, the family space in front of the Grande Halle, gives the weekend over to games: a games library, a reading room, open-access LEGO areas and screenings for small children. Everything is free, nothing needs booking, and it is built so that you can come and go as you like — which, with children on a wet Sunday in a foreign city, is exactly the right format. Playing with bricks requires no French whatsoever.
When: Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 October 2026, 2.30pm to 6.30pm
Where: Little Villette, Parc de la Villette, in front of the Grande Halle, 211 avenue Jean-Jaurès, 19th arrondissement
Getting there: metro line 5 to Porte de Pantin, line 7 to Porte de la Villette, tram T3b
Cost: free, open access during opening hours, no booking — the Little Villette programme on the Parc de la Villette website
Tip: arrive at 2.30pm opening — the LEGO areas are taken within the hour and there is no organised rotation. Make an afternoon of it rather than a stop: the Parc de la Villette around it is free too, the themed gardens take twenty minutes to walk, and on Sunday you need to be finished by 5.30pm anyway, because darkness arrives suddenly once the clocks have gone back.
Walks, Markets and Slower Ideas
An unusually rich weekend for street markets, and a floodlit medieval castle at the end of metro line 1 for the evenings, which now begin at six.
Paris street flea markets: avenue Victor-Hugo, avenue de la République and four more
Why go: six street brocantes across the three days, which is a lot for one weekend. Avenue Victor-Hugo in the smart 16th runs on Friday and Saturday, and a flea market on a working Friday is a rare thing. Avenues de la République and Parmentier in the 11th take over on Saturday and Sunday. Add place des Petits-Pères in the 2nd and rue Ronsard below Montmartre on Saturday, then avenue Daumesnil, cours de Vincennes and avenue de Flandre on Sunday. The permanent markets run too: the Puces de la Porte de Vanves on Saturday and Sunday mornings, 7am to 2pm, and the second-hand book market at Parc Georges-Brassens both days, 9am to 6pm. This is the cheapest and most local thing you can do in Paris on a weekend morning.
When: Friday 23 and Saturday 24 for avenue Victor-Hugo; Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 for avenue de la République; Saturday only for place des Petits-Pères and rue Ronsard; Sunday only for avenue Daumesnil, cours de Vincennes and avenue de Flandre. Most run roughly 7am to 6pm
Where: avenue Victor-Hugo, 16th; avenues de la République and Parmentier, 11th; place des Petits-Pères, 2nd; rue Ronsard, 18th; avenue Daumesnil and cours de Vincennes, 12th; avenue de Flandre, 19th
Getting there: metro lines 1, 2 and 6 to Charles de Gaulle-Étoile for avenue Victor-Hugo, line 3 to Parmentier for the 11th, line 3 to Bourse for Petits-Pères, line 12 to Abbesses for rue Ronsard, line 8 to Porte Dorée for Daumesnil, line 7 to Riquet for Flandre
Cost: free to browse; bring cash, as many stalls still do not take cards — this weekend’s Paris flea markets on L’Officiel des spectacles
Tip: go to avenue Victor-Hugo on Friday morning. It is the anomaly of the weekend — a flea market in an expensive neighbourhood on a working day, so no Saturday crowd, dealers with time to talk, and pieces that have not already been picked over three times. For Sunday, remember you have an hour less daylight: start at 9am on avenue de la République rather than 11, and be done by 4pm, when stallholders begin packing up in the fading light. Haggling is expected, and a polite “c’est votre meilleur prix ?” is all the French you need.
Nights of Light at the Château de Vincennes
Why go: the digital art festival lights up the keep and curtain walls of the Château de Vincennes with monumental projections and a lit route around the whole enclosure, from 6.30pm to 11pm. It is a real medieval castle with the tallest medieval keep in Europe, sitting at the end of metro line 1 — twenty minutes from Châtelet, which makes it the easiest evening excursion out of central Paris, and the simplest way to see something properly old after dark.
When: October 15 to November 8, 2026 — open this weekend in the evening, 6.30pm to 11pm
Where: Château de Vincennes, avenue de Paris, Vincennes, just beyond the eastern edge of Paris
Getting there: metro line 1 to Château de Vincennes, the end of the line, then five minutes on foot; RER A to Vincennes. Covered by a standard Paris travel pass
Cost: around €18 full price, €14 reduced, €12 for ages 6 to 12 and the family pass, free under 6 — Nights of Light listing on the Île-de-France regional website
Tip: the 6.30pm slot means two different things this weekend. On Friday and Saturday the sun sets at 6.45pm, so arriving at opening gives you the castle in blue dusk first and then the projections coming up on stone you can still see — far better than walking into total darkness. On Sunday it is already dark at 6.30pm, so take 8pm instead, once the first wave has left. Dress properly either way: the route is entirely outdoors inside walls that funnel the wind.
Good to Know This Weekend
- The clocks go back. Overnight from Saturday 24 to Sunday 25 October, at 3am it becomes 2am. You gain an hour in bed and lose an hour of afternoon: sunset falls from 6.45pm on Saturday to 5.42pm on Sunday, with sunrise at 7.26am. Phones adjust automatically; hotel alarm clocks, rental-flat ovens and your own watch do not. Check anything you have booked for Sunday — including a 2.30pm NFL kick-off.
- Closing days. Mondays: the Musée d’Orsay, the Picasso Museum, the Grand Palais, the Catacombs, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. Tuesdays: the Louvre, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the Bourse de Commerce, the Musée de l’Orangerie. The Musée du Luxembourg and the Musée Maillol open every day. Everything in this guide is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
- No public holiday, but it is half-term. Monday 26 October is an ordinary working day in France. However, the French autumn school holidays are running, so museums, the Catacombs and anything family-oriented are considerably busier than usual — book timed slots a few days ahead rather than on the morning. The next free-entry Sunday at the national museums is November 1, the first Sunday of the month, not this one.
- Paris Museum Pass. It covers the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay (both exhibitions), the Orangerie, the Picasso Museum, the Catacombs, the Conciergerie, the Sainte-Chapelle and the Panthéon — but a timed reservation is still required at each, and the pass does not get you one. It does not cover Art Basel, the Grand Palais’s Cezanne show, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the Musée du Luxembourg or the Musée Maillol, so buy those separately.
- Transport and crowds. Two pinch points. Around the Grand Palais, lines 1, 9 and 13 and the whole Champs-Élysées area are congested from late morning to 7.30pm all three days because of Art Basel. At Porte de Versailles, line 12 and trams T2 and T3a are packed by Paris Games Week, worst between 5pm and 7.30pm. Allow twenty extra minutes for either, and expect the Stade de France RER lines to be saturated for two hours after the NFL game ends, around 6pm Sunday.
- Weather and what to wear. Mild afternoons of roughly 14 to 17 °C, cold evenings, and a real chance of rain at this time of year. Bring a warm layer, a light waterproof and shoes that cope with wet cobbles — especially for the Catacombs, where the floor is permanently damp and it is 14 °C underground whatever it is doing on the surface.
That is the weekend of October 23 to 25, 2026: Art Basel and the whole contemporary art week around it, the closing weekend of Paris Games Week, the first NFL game ever played in France, two new exhibitions at the Musée d’Orsay, six street flea markets, and an hour of daylight taken away on Sunday. If you want one sequence rather than a list: the avenue Victor-Hugo flea market on Friday morning, Art Basel at 11am opening, the free Gener8ion installation and the Cezanne late opening the same evening, the Musée d’Orsay at first slot on Saturday with Fills Monkey at L’Olympia that night, and Sunday for the Versace show at opening before it closes — then Miguel Poveda at the Philharmonie at six. For the rest of the week, see our Paris agenda for this week; if you are putting a whole trip together, start with the best things to do in Paris, and if the Left Bank museums leave you wanting more sculpture, the Rodin Museum is ten minutes from the Musée Maillol.
This page is updated every Monday with the coming weekend’s selection. Tell me in the comments what you saw, and have a good weekend in Paris.
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