After two years here, I realize most tourist guides get the rhythm of the city completely wrong. Parisians don't rush around hitting monuments all day — They take long lunches, they sit in parks, they walk slowly and people-watch.

The best Paris experience is mimicking this pace. Pick ONE major thing per day, then spend the rest of your time just existing in neighborhoods. Sit at a café for an hour with one coffee (this is normal). Walk through residential streets in the 10th or 11th. Buy groceries at Monoprix and eat them in a square.

I see tourists exhausting themselves trying to see everything, missing the actual personality of the city. Paris reveals itself when you slow down, not when you're sprinting between Instagram spots.