A Solo Weekend in Paris from the UK, No Flight Required

Paris Alone: Two Hours by Train and a City Fine About Tables for One

The common assumption about a solo weekend in Paris is that you pay double for everything. The single supplement on a hotel room. The awkward table for one where the waiter asks if you are waiting for someone. The missed discount that only applies to couples. None of that is true. Paris is one of the few European capitals where the solo traveller is an ordinary customer, not a problem to be solved. The city has a long tradition of the zinc bar, the counter seat, the solitary drink. It has actual single rooms, not double rooms with a discount that barely covers the loss of the second guest. From the UK, you can be there in two hours and fifteen minutes without setting foot in an airport security line. This page tells you how to do a solo weekend in Paris by Eurostar, priced for one person, framed from a Friday evening to Sunday evening, and built around the reality that you will eat, drink and sleep alone without it being a chore.

The Train That Kills the Airport Friction

Booking and Boarding

Book a Friday evening Eurostar from London St Pancras. The standard journey time runs from two hours fifteen minutes to two hours thirty minutes. Check in closes thirty minutes before departure, not sixty minutes. Arrive at St Pancras, pass through the combined UK border and French police check, and board. No bus to a distant runway. No forty minute taxi. No baggage drop deadline. The train arrives at Gare du Nord in the 10th arrondissement. It is not the pretty part of Paris but metro Line 4 and Line 5 connect it to everything.

The Cost Comparison

Compare the cost. A standard class return on Eurostar in shoulder season booked four weeks ahead runs from £78 to £150. A return flight from London to Paris on a budget carrier with one checked bag runs from £60 to £200, but you add the Heathrow Express from Paddington at £25, or the Gatwick Express at £19, or the Stansted Express at £22. Add the RER B from Paris Charles de Gaulle to the city centre at £11. Add the bus from Paris Beauvais at one hour fifteen minutes each way for £3 each way if you find the cheapest operator. The Eurostar ends up cheaper or comparable after you factor in transport to and from the airports, and it saves you ninety minutes of faff at each end. The train is the mechanism that makes a weekend possible. You cannot do this with a flight unless you leave work early on Friday and take a taxi to Heathrow. With the train, leave work at 17:00, walk to St Pancras, and eat dinner in Paris by 21:30.

The Single Room Problem and How to Solve it

The Real Economics

The single supplement myth has a basis in reality. Many hotels do not have single rooms. They have double rooms which they sell to one person at 70 to 90 percent of the double rate. That is not a supplement. That is a discount of 10 to 30 percent off the price the couple pays per room. The per person rate for the solo traveller is still higher than the per person rate for the couple. You cannot fix that. You can manage it by picking the right district and the right hotel band.

Where to Stay

Stay in the 10th or 11th arrondissements. These are not tourist centre arrondissements. They are the districts north and east of the Marais, the ones where Parisians actually live. The 10th runs north from Gare du Nord along the Canal Saint-Martin. The 11th runs east from the Place de la Bastille toward Oberkampf and République. A single room in a three star hotel in these arrondissements in low season costs from €90 to €150 per night. In shoulder season the same room runs higher, and in high season higher still. The hotel band that works for a solo traveller on a realistic budget is the three star with a lift, a private bathroom, and a room that fits a single bed and a desk. The four star in the 10th or 11th costs €150 to €250 and the only thing you gain is a slightly larger bed and a lobby that makes expensive coffee. Book directly on the hotel website or through booking.com. Do not book a hostel dorm for €35 if you value sleep and security with bags.

Eating Alone at the Bar Without it Being a Thing

The Bar Rule

The single best piece of advice for a solo diner in Paris is this: sit at the bar. The brasserie bar counter, the zinc bar in a bistro, the counter at a wine bar. These are spaces designed for one person. The waiter expects you to order a coffee and a croissant, or a glass of wine and a steak frites, and then leave. There is no table to clear, no second place setting to remove, no awkward silence.

Where to Find the Right Brasserie

In the 10th and 11th arrondissements, the brasseries where a solo diner at the counter is unremarkable include the ones along the Canal Saint-Martin and the bars around the Place de la République. The specific names are less important than the type of establishment. Look for a brasserie that has a long bar, a chalkboard menu, and a plat du jour for around €14 to €20. Avoid any restaurant that has a maître d' with a reservation book and a stand outside. Those are places where the table for one is a revenue loss and they will seat you by the toilets.

Timing and Tipping

The standard practice in Paris is that service is included by law. The menu price is the price you pay. You do not tip. Leave a coin if you want, but nobody expects it. A café espresso at the counter costs from €1.20 to €2.00. The same coffee at a table costs from €2.50 to €4.50. That euro and thirty cent difference is the cost of a seat. If you are eating alone, drink at the counter and save the money for the main course. Dinner service starts at 19:00, with the peak seating from 20:00 to 21:30. Arrive at 19:00 and you get the best seat at the bar. Arrive at 20:30 and you wait.

What a Solo Weekend Actually Looks Like

Friday Evening

Train departs St Pancras from 17:00 to 20:00. Arrives Gare du Nord. Metro to your hotel in the 10th or 11th. Drop bags. Walk to a brasserie near the Canal Saint-Martin. Eat dinner at the bar. Walk back. Sleep.

Saturday Morning: Tickets and a Museum

Buy a carnet of ten t+ tickets at the station machine for €17.35. One ticket covers one metro ride within the centre of Paris. The carnet is cheaper than ten singles at €2.15 each, and you can share it with nobody because you are alone. Buy a Navigo Easy card for €2 at the station machine and load the carnet onto it rather than using paper tickets. The paper ticket demagnetises in a pocket. The Navigo card does not.

Saturday morning: choose one museum. The Louvre costs from €12 to €22 depending on the ticket type and the season, but the permanent collections at the Musée Carnavalet (history of Paris) or the Petit Palais or the Musée d'Art Moderne are free. Always. The Musée Carnavalet is in the Marais, close to the 11th, and covers the history of the city from the Romans to the present. It takes two hours to see, which leaves the rest of the day open.

Saturday Afternoon and Sunday

Saturday afternoon: walk. The 11th arrondissement has the Place de la Bastille, the Rue Oberkampf, and the edges of the Marais. The 10th has the Canal Saint-Martin and the Gare de l'Est. Both are neighbourhoods where you can spend four hours walking with a coffee stop and a pastry stop and a book stop and not see a single tourist except yourself. Sunday morning: the market at the Bastille. The food market on the Boulevard Richard Lenoir runs Sunday morning until about 13:00. Buy a cheese, a baguette, a piece of fruit. Eat it on a bench in the Place des Vosges. Walk to the Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre, 18th arrondissement. The steps give a free view over the city. Sunday evening: train back to London from Gare du Nord from 17:00 to 21:00.

The Honest Caveat

A solo weekend in Paris by Eurostar is a good trip. It is also a limited trip. You cannot see the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay and the Eiffel Tower in a weekend. You cannot do Versailles as a day trip from your hotel in the 11th and still eat dinner at a reasonable hour. You cannot visit both the Marais and Montmartre on the same day unless you are prepared to spend two hours on the metro. The trip works because you accept the constraint. See one neighbourhood, one museum, one market, one brasserie. Eat alone at the bar. Go home on Sunday evening. The rest of Paris will be there when you come back.