Left Bank: Orsay, Rodin and Invalides to the Grand Palais: a walk in Paris

Impressionists at Orsay, the curiosity shop Deyrolle, Rodin's garden and Napoleon's tomb, then across Pont Alexandre III to the 1900 palaces.

Best time: Tuesday to Sunday; Orsay is closed Mon, Rodin closed Mon

The route, stop by stop

1
Musée d'Orsay
Impressionist galleries on the 5th floor, 2 hours.
Impressionist and Post-Impressionist core collection (Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Degas) inside a Beaux-Arts railway station; the 5th-floor clock window looks over the Seine to…
2
Deyrolle
Taxidermy cabinet, 15 min.
Taxidermy and natural-history shop since 1831; the first floor is a cabinet of curiosities with lions, bears and butterfly drawers you can browse.
3
Musée Rodin
Sculpture garden and house, 75 min.
The Thinker, the Gates of Hell and the Burghers of Calais set in a 3-hectare rose garden around the Hôtel Biron, where Rodin worked; also holds Camille Claudel's sculptures.
4
Hôtel des Invalides & Musée de l'Armée
Dôme and Napoleon's tomb, 60 min.
Louis XIV's veterans' hospital: Napoleon's porphyry tomb under the gilded Dôme church, plus one of the world's largest military museums (armour, WWI and WWII galleries).
5
Pont Alexandre III
Gilded bridge with view to the Eiffel Tower, 10 min.
6
Petit Palais – City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts
Free museum and garden café, 45 min.
Free fine-arts museum in an 1900 World's Fair palace; the semicircular mosaic-floored garden café is one of the best free stops near the Champs-Élysées.
7
Grand Palais
Look at the nave, or see an exhibition.
1900 glass-and-steel nave, the largest in Europe, reopened in 2025 after a four-year restoration; hosts major exhibitions and events.