Start on the Champs-Élysées, Where the Lights Outlast the Party
You wake on the first morning of 2027 to a city that has not quite gone to sleep. The holiday illuminations still hang above the Champs-Élysées and the big department stores, and because January 1 is a public holiday in France, the streets are quieter than usual — a rare version of Paris, all glow and no rush. The metro is running, but on a public-holiday schedule, so check RATP times before you set out; services can start late and finish early. Almost everything that isn't a museum, a monument, a cabaret or a restaurant is shut, which is precisely why you plan this day rather than improvise it. Book ahead for the Eiffel Tower, Seine cruises, cabarets, concerts and any restaurant you have your eye on — January 1 simply offers fewer open doors than a normal day.
Climb, Gaze and Wander: What's Actually Open on January 1
The Eiffel Tower stays open, with tickets released in advance and reserved-access guided tours if you'd rather skip the queue. The Musée d'Orsay also opens its doors, its Impressionist and early-20th-century collections — Van Gogh, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Art Nouveau — housed in the former Gare d'Orsay. For something smaller and stranger, the Musée Jacquemart-André opens the 19th-century mansion of Édouard André and Nélie Jacquemart, with Rembrandt, Botticelli and Fragonard hung among private apartments, a winter garden and a double staircase.
- Musée de Montmartre — at 12 rue Cortot, where Renoir once kept a studio; the Renoir Gardens look out over the Clos Montmartre vineyard.
- Père-Lachaise Cemetery — free entry in the 20th arrondissement, open on January 1, with graves of Chopin, Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison; guided tours run that day.
- The Louvre — closed on January 1. Plan it for another morning.
If the weather is on your side, Père-Lachaise is the better gamble: bare trees, long avenues and a crowd that is mostly local.
Take to the Water, Then Take a Pew
Seine cruises run on January 1 — lunch, sightseeing and dinner sailings, with schedules that vary by operator. Bateaux Parisiens offers a multi-course dinner with wine or champagne and a window-table option; Bateaux Mouches pairs dinner with champagne and live music; and a three-course lunch cruise runs on glass-walled boats. Whichever you choose, the route passes Notre-Dame, the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, Pont Alexandre III and the Eiffel Tower, and the evening sailings catch the bridges and monuments lit up.
Afternoon into evening, classical concerts fill historic churches, including Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Programmes swing from Baroque — Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart — to chamber music, sacred music and gospel. For a different kind of evening, the Moulin Rouge, Crazy Horse and Paradis Latin all stage shows on New Year's Day, some with dinner, running late into the night.
Eat Oysters, Because That Is What January Is For
Oysters are the traditional French holiday food across the Christmas-to-New-Year stretch, and January is prime season. Look for varieties from Brittany, Normandy, Marennes-Oléron and the Atlantic coast, served the classic way: lemon, shallot vinegar, bread and salted butter, with a glass of Sancerre or champagne alongside. Many restaurants close or run reduced hours on January 1, but hotel restaurants, brasseries, cabarets and dinner cruises typically stay open — which makes a long, slow lunch or a cruise dinner the most reliable way to eat well on the day itself.
One Day Beyond the City
With the holiday lights still up and the museums thinned out, the day after New Year's is a good moment to leave the arrondissements behind. Keep it simple: the same public-holiday transport logic applies, so check schedules before you commit, and treat the season — illuminations, oyster bars, church concerts — as the thing you came for rather than any single ticketed event. No official 2027 programme has been published, so build your day around what Paris reliably does each year: the tower open, the Orsay open, the churches singing, the river boats running, the oyster platters out.
Start with the two or three things you refuse to miss — a tower slot, a concert, a table — and book them now, while January 1 still has room. Everything else in Paris that morning will simply be there: the lights overhead, the quiet streets, and a city that has decided to take the day slowly with you.