The 10 Most Famous Streets in Paris to Visit This Summer

Paris is one of the most visited cities in the world and is at the top of many bucket lists. I can completely understand why. In fact, I’m off to Paris again next week for a quick overnight trip with my daughter, and we’re staying in Le Marais, as I’ve not stayed in that arrondissement before.

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I’ve been to Paris many times, but my daughter has only been twice, so we’ll definitely be doing some of the more touristy things. She mentioned a couple of the famous streets in Paris that she wants to visit.

It was interesting because they weren’t streets I’d usually bother with, and one of them, which she didn’t know the name of, had to describe it to me, hence me writing this article. I figured if my daughter didn’t know the names of the streets she’d seen on Instagram, probably plenty of other people didn’t either.

Sunlit Paris street slopes between cream stone buildings with wrought iron balconies toward the Métropole entrance and red café awnings. The lively neighborhood scene reflects the architecture cafés and street views found along famous streets in Paris.

The 10 Most Famous Streets in Paris You Won’t Want to Miss

The one my daughter couldn’t remember, as it turned out, was Avenue Montaigne. She’s desperate to see the Dior flagship store after falling head over heels for the label while watching the TV series The New Look.

This list is a mix of grand boulevards, luxury windows, market streets, and the pretty little lanes that appear on every Instagram feed.

Avenue des Champs-Élysées

Elevated view along a broad tree lined Paris avenue filled with cars and bordered by pale stone buildings. The Arc de Triomphe stands at the far end of the boulevard beneath a clear blue sky.

Let’s start with the obvious one, because it earns its fame. The Champs-Élysées runs for a mile and a bit from Place de la Concorde up to the Arc de Triomphe, and it’s been Paris’s grand ceremonial avenue since the 17th century, when it was laid out as a sweep of gardens and trees.

Today it’s a broad, tree-lined parade of flagship stores, cafés, and cinemas. In my opinion, it’s a little overrated, and the lower stretch is all chain shops and crowds. But the view up to the Arc, especially lit at dusk, is still wonderful.

Go, walk it once, so you can say you’ve done it, and keep a firm hand on your bag, because this is prime hunting ground for pickpockets and street scams.

Avenue Montaigne

Elegant cream stone corner building with curved wrought iron balconies and a dark mansard roof. The ground floor displays the word "DIOR" above a luxury boutique entrance and window displays.

This is the one that started the whole article. Avenue Montaigne is the beating heart of Parisian high fashion, a short, elegant run between the Champs-Élysées and the Seine that forms one side of the so-called Golden Triangle. Dior, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Valentino, they’re all here behind gleaming windows and doormen.

The reason my daughter wanted it is number 30. Christian Dior opened his couture house there in 1946, and it was on that very spot in 1947 that he unveiled the nipped-waist, full-skirted look the world christened the New Look, the collection that put Paris back on the fashion map after the war.

If you love a bit of designer window shopping, even just to press your nose against the glass, this is your street.

Rue de Rivoli

Sunlit Parisian buildings with wrought iron balconies and a long ground floor arcade of stone arches. Pedestrians shops bicycles and a parked car line the street beneath a bright blue sky.

Rue de Rivoli is Napoleon’s street, and it looks it. He began building it in 1802 and named it after his victory at the Battle of Rivoli in 1797. It runs dead straight for nearly a mile along the north edge of the Louvre and the Tuileries Gardens.

Its most famous feature is the long line of arcades, those elegant covered walkways that let you shop or stroll out of the rain.

It’s a wonderful street to walk because it strings together so much of Paris in one line, from the museums down towards Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine once stood during the bloodier chapters of the city’s history. These days, it’s a mix of high street shops, the odd grand hotel, and a very handy through-route on foot.

Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré

Sunny Paris street lined with ornate cream stone buildings and wrought iron balconies. Pedestrians walk past parked cars beneath British American and French flags hanging above the road.

If Avenue Montaigne is new-money glamour, the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré is the old-money original. This narrow street in the 8th has been the address of the seriously elegant since the 18th century, and it’s home to Hermès and a parade of the world’s biggest fashion houses, along with art galleries and antique dealers.

It also happens to be where the President of France lives. The Élysée Palace sits about halfway along, discreet behind its gates, which is why you’ll spot the odd police presence and a black car or two. Come for a look at how the other half shops, then find a café and do the maths on that handbag.

Boulevard Saint-Germain

The iconic Les Deux Magots café in Paris, with its traditional green awning and outdoor seating, bustling with patrons on a cloudy day, as bare trees hint at the winter season.

Cross over to the Left Bank and everything slows down a touch. Boulevard Saint-Germain curves for over two miles through the heart of intellectual Paris, and it’s the spiritual home of the city’s café culture.

This was the stamping ground of writers and thinkers like Sartre and de Beauvoir, who held court over coffee in the 1940s and 50s.

The two legendary cafés, Les Deux Magots and the Café de Flore, sit almost side by side here and are still going strong, though you’ll pay handsomely for the privilege of a table. Order one coffee, make it last an hour, and watch Paris go by.

Rue Montorgueil

Now we get to my kind of street. Rue Montorgueil is a bustling, pedestrian-friendly market street in the 2nd, and there’s been a road here since the 13th century, back when it was the route carting fresh goods into the old central market of Les Halles. It’s been feeding Paris for the best part of 800 years.

Walk it today, and you’ll find fishmongers, cheese shops, florists, wine merchants, and café terraces spilling across the cobbles.

Right in the middle sits Stohrer, the oldest pastry shop in Paris, opened in 1730 by a baker who came to Paris in the service of a queen. Come hungry. This is where you buy a picnic and a cake you didn’t need.

Rue des Rosiers

Since I’m staying in Le Marais this trip, this one’s close to my heart. Rue des Rosiers is the narrow, atmospheric spine of the old Jewish quarter, known as the Pletzl, tucked into the heart of Le Marais. The name means “street of the rose bushes,” and it’s one of the most characterful lanes in the city.

It’s famous these days for two things. First, the falafel. The little shops at one end have a long-running, good-natured rivalry over who makes the best in Paris, and the queues out the door tell you it’s worth the wait.

Second, the sense of history in a quarter that has seen a great deal of it. Go for the food, stay for the bookshops, bakeries, and boutiques.

Rue Mouffetard

Rue Mouffetard, or La Mouffe as locals call it, is one of the oldest streets in the whole city, following the line of a Roman road that’s some 2,000 years old. It tumbles down a hill through the Latin Quarter in the 5th, and it somehow escaped Baron Haussmann’s great 19th-century demolition, so it kept its crooked, medieval character.

The lower end is a proper daily market, all overflowing produce stalls, cheesemongers, and tiny restaurants, with a lovely village feel that’s rare this close to the center.

It’s steep, it’s narrow, and it’s endlessly photogenic. This is the Paris that people fall in love with.

Rue Crémieux

Here’s one of the streets my daughter had clocked on Instagram without a clue where it was. Rue Crémieux is a short, cobbled, pedestrian lane near the Gare de Lyon, and it’s famous for one reason: the houses are painted every pastel shade you can imagine, soft pink, mint, sky blue, buttery yellow. It’s about as far from grand Haussmann stone as Paris gets.

The residents chose the colors together back in 1993, and by 2019, the street had racked up tens of thousands of photos and become one of the most Instagrammed spots in the city, right up there with the corners made famous by shows like Emily in Paris.

A gentle word to the wise. Real people live behind those pretty doors, so it’s one of the prettiest streets in Paris to enjoy with a light footprint. Snap your photo, then let them have their morning back.

Rue de l’Abreuvoir

I’ve saved the loveliest for last. Rue de l’Abreuvoir is a curving, cobbled little lane up in Montmartre, often called the prettiest street in all of Paris, and once you’ve seen it, you won’t argue. Ivy-clad houses, a real village hush, and glimpses of the white domes of Sacré-Cœur at the top of the hill.

Its star is La Maison Rose, the little pink café on the corner with green shutters that has been painted, photographed, and swooned over since it opened in 1908. Artists like Picasso drank here when Montmartre was the scruffy home of the avant-garde.

It’s touristy now, no question, but stand at that corner early in the morning before the crowds arrive, and it’s pure magic.

A Few Practical Bits Before You Go

Ten is nowhere near the full count, so if you catch the bug, there are plenty more streets worth walking once you’ve done these. My advice is not to try to do all ten in a day. Pick three or four that suit your mood, whether that’s shopping, market browsing, or pretty-lane pottering, and let the walking between them be half the fun.

Get comfortable with the metro, because these streets are scattered right across the city, and your feet will thank you.

As for me, I’ll be walking Avenue Montaigne next week, whether I like it or not, camera at the ready, watching my daughter fall in love all over again.