Step out from under the low arcades of place des Vosges and thirty-six pavilions of red brick and pale stone stand in front of you. Every one of them has the same slate roof and the same row of dormer windows, and together they close around a square of lawn with a fountain at each corner. This is where the Marais begins. Counting the square itself, within a kilometre you have nine things to see and no two of them are alike: a museum of the city’s history, two collectors’ houses, a writer’s house, a museum of twentieth-century art, two Jewish institutions and a collection of machines.
Distance is not the problem here, because you can walk from one door to the next in ten minutes. The calendar is the problem: seven of these nine sites close on Monday, the Mémorial de la Shoah closes on Saturday, and place des Vosges never closes at all. There is no day of the week that holds all nine open, so you either give the Marais two separate days or you decide in advance what you are going to leave out.
So which day gives you the most of the Marais?
Let’s go!
The day of the week, and the two evenings the district keeps going
Start with the simple rule. On Monday the only things open in the Marais are the Mémorial de la Shoah and place des Vosges, which is a square and never closes, because Picasso, Carnavalet, Cognacq-Jay, Maison de Victor Hugo, mahJ, Chasse et Nature and Arts et Métiers are all shut. Saturday turns that exactly upside down: everything else opens and the Mémorial closes.
After that it is the late openings that choose for you, and there are three of them.
On Wednesday the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature opens a separate evening slot, 18:00-21:30, except in July and August. From 15 October 2026 to 14 March 2027 the mahJ also runs until 21:00. Those are two late nights four hundred metres apart, so in winter, if you can pick your day, pick Wednesday. On Friday the Musée des Arts et Métiers closes at 21:00, all year round, and the Mémorial de la Shoah is open, because its day off is Saturday rather than Friday. On Thursday the Mémorial stretches to 21:00.
Note: if you come on a public holiday, the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature is closed. It is the one site in the district that shuts on every public holiday, and you notice the difference on 1 November or 11 November, when the other city and national museums of the Marais open as usual.
Then there is a second calendar, and it is not the civil one. The mahJ and the Mémorial de la Shoah close on certain Jewish holidays, which follow a lunar calendar and fall on different dates each year. Neither site publishes the autumn dates in advance: on 2 October 2026 the Mémorial’s page still listed only three spring closures, all of them past, and the mahJ’s page had taken the old ones down without putting anything in their place. If your visit falls between September and October, check the museum’s own site the day before.
1. Place des Vosges, and the courtyard you should walk in through
The square is free and asks nothing of anyone: you can walk the arcades at any hour, while the fenced garden in the middle keeps hours that change with the season. Under the arches you will find galleries, a couple of cafés and the run of archways Victor Hugo had below his windows.
The best way in is not rue de Birague, which is the monumental entrance, but the courtyard of the hôtel de Sully, which opens off rue Saint-Antoine and is a public right of way. You cross a seventeenth-century courtyard with the seasons carved as allegories between the windows, come out into a small garden of box clipped into squares, and emerge into the square from one corner. You have paid nothing and nobody has asked you for a ticket. I tell the story of the square, starting with the 1559 tournament in which Henry II was fatally wounded, in What you don’t know about Place des Vosges.
2. Maison de Victor Hugo, and the ticket with no published price
Hugo rented the second-floor apartment at number 6 on the square, under the arcades, from 1832 to 1848, and those seven rooms are a Ville de Paris museum today. Normally you pay nothing for the permanent collection, as at the other municipal museums.
Right now, though, everything is ticketed. For the exhibition Hugo et l’architecture the museum has put the permanent rooms behind a ticket too, from 11 June to 22 November 2026. Here comes the awkward part: the amount is not published, neither on the practical information page nor on the exhibition page. I am not going to guess at it, because a made-up figure is worth less to you than an honest answer: you will read the price at the Paris Musées desk when you buy. From 23 November 2026 the permanent collection goes back to being free. One small, real detail: the museum café closed on 19 June 2026, so don’t count on it for a break.
I have lined up the seven rooms of the apartment, from the Chinese drawing room to the bedroom where Hugo died, in Maison de Victor Hugo: 7 rooms to see.
3. Musée Picasso, in the hôtel Salé
Why is a mansion built on the salt tax called the hôtel Salé?
Because the man who commissioned it, Pierre Aubert de Fontenay, collected the gabelle, the tax on salt, on the king’s behalf against a lump sum: Parisians pinned the nickname on him, and it has stuck for three and a half centuries. Aubert bought the land on 16 May 1656, 3,700 square metres for 40,000 livres, and handed the building work to an unknown young man from the district, Jean Boullier de Bourges, the nephew of a mason who had already worked for his relatives. The work was finished in the last days of 1659. Four years later Aubert fell along with Fouquet, his creditors’ lawsuit dragged on for sixty years and the mansion ended up rented to the Republic of Venice as its embassy.
There is one fact almost nobody tells you, and it pays for the detour even if Picasso leaves you cold. In 1660 Aubert bought a jeu de paume that had housed the Théâtre du Marais from 1634 to 1673, to open up access towards rue Vieille-du-Temple, and he kept the actors’ lease going. The theatre where Corneille staged his first plays stood in the garden of what is now the Musée Picasso. The building has been a historic monument since 29 October 1968, it was restored between 1974 and 1979 and rehung by Roland Simounet, because nothing of the original furnishings was left when the Ville de Paris bought it in 1962.
The museum opens Tuesday to Sunday 9:30-18:00, last admission at 17:15, and the full ticket costs 16 euros. If you have the Paris Museum Pass, this is a place to use it. The museum is also free on the first Sunday of the month, and it is always free for under-18s and for anyone under 26 who is a citizen or resident of the European Union. I have picked the ten works worth slowing down for in Musée Picasso: 10 works to see.
4. Musée Carnavalet, the largest of the free ones
If something has to come out of your programme, don’t let it be this. The Carnavalet fills two Marais mansions, tells the story of Paris from prehistory to today, and the permanent collection is free for everyone, with no age brackets, no ticket and no booking. It opens Tuesday to Sunday 10:00-18:00, with the desks and last admission at 17:15, and closes on Monday; the temporary exhibitions, those you do pay for.
Its limit is not the price but your luggage: bags are searched at the door as a matter of course and suitcases do not come in, so if you arrive from the Gare de Lyon wheeling a case, put this stop off until after the hotel. The eight rooms I would start from are in Musée Carnavalet: 8 stops.
On your way out towards rue Saint-Antoine you pass the church of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, which has a baroque facade of three stacked orders, statues in the niches and a large gilded clock face in the middle. Like almost every French church it asks for no ticket, and I have written about the logic of what you can see in Paris without paying in Paris for free.
5. Musée Cognacq-Jay, with a proviso worth reading
How much does it cost to get into the Cognacq-Jay?
It depends on what is hanging, and that is the only honest answer. The museum states that admission is free outside temporary exhibition periods, and while a show is on you pay for everything, 11 euros, permanent collection included. This is the “outside temporary exhibitions” proviso in its hardest form, because here, during an exhibition, there is no room you get into for nothing. Before you go, check its page to see whether a show is up: that is what decides whether you pay, and how much.
There is a second thing to know, and it applies to autumn 2026. From 23 September the museum is taking down the exhibition Révéler le féminin and seven of its fourteen rooms remain open, without any statement of which ones: the full reopening is announced for 3 November 2026. If you go before that date, bear in mind that half the route may not be there, including some of the six stops I describe in Musée Cognacq-Jay: 6 stops. Hours are Tuesday to Sunday 10:00-18:00, closed on Monday. And for as long as the dismantling lasts its rates page publishes no figure at all, reopened on 7 October 2026: nowhere does it say whether this counts as an exhibition period, so ask at the desk whether the 11 euros apply.
6. mahJ, in the hôtel de Saint-Aignan
The Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme occupies a seventeenth-century mansion on rue du Temple and tells a thousand years of Jewish life in Europe, with a section that reaches as far as Chagall and Modigliani. The full ticket costs 13 euros, the concession 9, and it is covered by the Paris Museum Pass. It opens Tuesday to Friday 11:00-18:00 and Saturday and Sunday 10:00-18:00, with closing pushed back to 19:00 from 15 October 2026 to 14 March 2027, and in that same period Wednesday evening runs on until 21:00. It closes on Monday and on certain Jewish holidays.
From the museum door it is a five-minute walk to rue des Rosiers, the street of the Jewish quarter. It is paved and pedestrian, with bakery signs and candelabra fixed to the walls, and a plaque tells the story of rue Ferdinand-Duval, which until 1900 was called rue des Juifs. The seven works I start from inside the museum are in mahJ: 7 works to see.
7. Mémorial de la Shoah, the one museum open on Monday
What is there to see in a memorial that asks for no ticket?
A wall carrying 75,568 names, a crypt, an archive and a permanent route through the deportation of the Jews of France, and admission is free for everyone, with no booking. This is the place that saves your Monday, because it opens Sunday to Friday 10:00-18:00, with Thursday until 21:00, and closes on Saturday instead of Monday.
There is something the Mémorial offers that gets very little attention: a free guided tour every Sunday at 15:00, an hour and a half long, bookable in advance. If you are in the district on a Sunday, that is the best way to walk those rooms, because a route like this one, with nobody telling it to you, risks turning into a reading of captions. I have lined up the museum’s six stops in Mémorial de la Shoah: 6 stops.
8. Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, the one that is like nothing else
It is the strangest museum in the Marais and for a lot of visitors the most fun as well: two mansions joined together, rooms furnished like a collector’s apartment, taxidermied animals, damascened weapons and contemporary works slipped in among the antique furniture. The full ticket costs 13 euros when an exhibition is on and 11 euros between one show and the next, and it is not covered by the Paris Museum Pass, so you pay separately even with the pass in your pocket.
It opens Tuesday to Sunday 11:00-18:00, closes on Monday and, alone among the nine, on every public holiday as well. On Wednesday evening it opens 18:00-21:30, July and August excepted, and that is when those rooms give you the most, because you see them in low light and without the crowd. The six stops where I would linger are in Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature: 6 stops.
9. Musée des Arts et Métiers, at the northern edge of the district
Here you leave the historic Marais and arrive in a medieval priory turned into the oldest museum of technology in Europe: the steam engine, Cugnot’s fardier, the aeroplanes hanging overhead, Foucault’s pendulum in the church of Saint-Martin-des-Champs. The full ticket costs 12 euros and the concession 9; with the immersive experience Lady Liberté the ticket goes up to 21 and 18 euros. It is covered by the Paris Museum Pass, it opens Tuesday to Sunday 10:00-18:00 and on Friday until 21:00, and it closes on Monday.
Two provisos make the first Sunday of the month less convenient here than it sounds: the free admission covers the permanent collection only and leaves out the immersive experience, and the free tickets are issued at the museum welcome desk and nowhere else, not online. Under-18s also get in free, as do 18 to 25-year-olds resident in the European Union, so if you fall into either category bring some identification. The eight machines I would start from are in Musée des Arts et Métiers: 8 machines to see.
Practical information
Details checked on 2 October 2026 on the official sites of the individual museums. Prices and hours change: check again before you travel.
Tickets. The full ticket at the Musée Picasso costs 16 euros and covers the whole museum. The mahJ asks 13 euros full and 9 concession, and the Chasse et Nature costs 13 euros when an exhibition is up and 11 euros between one show and the next. The Arts et Métiers ask 12 euros full and 9 concession, which become 21 and 18 with the immersive experience Lady Liberté. The Cognacq-Jay costs 11 euros only during exhibition periods. With no published price. The Maison de Victor Hugo is ticketed, permanent collection included, from 11 June to 22 November 2026, and the museum publishes the amount on none of its pages: you read the figure at the Paris Musées desk. Hours. Picasso opens 9:30-18:00 with last admission at 17:15. Carnavalet, Cognacq-Jay, Maison de Victor Hugo and Arts et Métiers open 10:00-18:00, the Chasse et Nature opens 11:00-18:00 and the Mémorial de la Shoah 10:00-18:00. The mahJ opens 11:00-18:00 on weekdays and 10:00-18:00 at the weekend, and closes at 19:00 from 15 October 2026 to 14 March 2027. Closing days. Seven of the nine sites close on Monday and the Mémorial de la Shoah closes on Saturday, while place des Vosges is a square and stays walkable at all times. The Chasse et Nature also closes on every public holiday, and the mahJ and the Mémorial close on certain Jewish holidays whose autumn dates they do not publish in advance. Late openings. On Wednesday the Chasse et Nature opens a separate evening slot, 18:00-21:30, and the mahJ runs until 21:00, the second of those only from 15 October to 14 March. On Thursday the Mémorial de la Shoah closes at 21:00, on Friday the Arts et Métiers close at 21:00. Free admission. The permanent collection of the Musée Carnavalet is free for everyone and needs no booking, and the Mémorial de la Shoah is free for individual visitors, who do not have to book. The Cognacq-Jay is free outside exhibition periods. The Musée Picasso and the Arts et Métiers are free on the first Sunday of the month, with the provisos set out above for the second. At the Picasso, anyone under 18 gets in free, and so does anyone under 26 who is a citizen or resident of the European Union. At the Arts et Métiers the formula is different and covers under-18s and European Union residents aged between 18 and 25: read which of the two applies to you before you join the queue. Paris Museum Pass. The pass covers the Musée Picasso, the mahJ and the Arts et Métiers, while the Chasse et Nature stays outside it. Getting there. Saint-Paul on line 1 serves the southern Marais, which means Carnavalet, Cognacq-Jay, Picasso and the Mémorial de la Shoah. Chemin Vert on line 8 is the stop for place des Vosges and the northern Marais. Rambuteau on line 11 and Arts-et-Métiers on lines 3 and 11 serve the mahJ, the Chasse et Nature and the Arts et Métiers. Bastille on lines 1, 5 and 8 is still the handiest for the Maison de Victor Hugo. Hôtel de Ville on lines 1 and 11, Pont-Marie on line 7 and Étienne Marcel on line 4 fill in the rest. How long it takes. Half a day is enough for place des Vosges, the Maison de Victor Hugo and the Carnavalet, which all three sit on the same block. The whole district, with its nine sites, asks for two days, and for the reason given at the start it asks for two even if you want to rush: there is no single day on which all of them are open.
How to line them up
The programme that gives you the most starts on a Wednesday or a Friday. On a winter Wednesday you cover the afternoon museums and then choose between the mahJ and the Chasse et Nature for the evening; on a Friday you finish at the Arts et Métiers at 21:00 and you get the Mémorial de la Shoah on the same day. Keep Monday for the Mémorial and for a long walk among the courtyards, because the carriage doors of the Marais mansions stand open for most of the day and you can look in without paying.
If the Marais is one stop on a shorter trip, it sits inside the second day of the route I have set out in What to see in Paris in 3 days. And before you buy any ticket at all, take out of the sum what costs nothing here: half of this district is on the list in Paris for free. Its twin, on the other side of the Seine, is the Latin Quarter, where the closing days are three different ones instead of one.
Photographs: place des Vosges by Calips, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons; courtyard of the hôtel de Sully by Hypercrate, CC BY-SA 4.0; church of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis by GO69, CC BY-SA 3.0; rue des Rosiers by Guilhem Vellut, CC BY 2.0.
