Welcoming family and friends visiting Paris

Welcoming family and friends to Paris is a rare pleasure, and a small organisational challenge. Parents coming for a few days, friends passing through for a weekend: you want to offer them an easy city, a home that is ready, a programme at their own pace. The risk is spending the visit rushing, booking at the last minute, and ending the week more tired than your guests.

Here is a method for preparing their stay with care, without turning your Parisian home into an improvised travel agency. It comes down to one idea: settle everything before they arrive, so you stay available during the stay.

How to prepare the home before they arrive?

A home that is ready is the first mark of attention, the one felt the moment the door opens. A few days ahead, run through the points that truly matter:

• Air the rooms, clean the home, set out fresh bed linen and towels.
• Stock the fridge with the essentials: water, coffee, milk, fruit, enough for the first morning without a trip out.
• Check the reassuring details: soap, paper, chargers, a working bedside lamp.
• Leave a few welcome touches: a handwritten note, seasonal flowers, a bottle for the evening of their arrival.

Think also of practical comfort: a clear space for suitcases, free hangers, the wifi code written somewhere obvious. It is these small nothings that make a loved one feel at home without daring to ask.

To take in the preparation at a glance, here is the framework to follow:

Moment	What should be ready
A week ahead	Flexible outline agreed, key moments booked, timed tickets secured
A few days ahead	Cleaning and fresh linen, equipment checked, welcome touches planned
The eve of the arrival	Fridge stocked, keys and codes assigned, neighbourhood address book left in view
Departure day	Taxi or transfer ordered, suitcases anticipated, tidy-up and laundry to plan

Planning a tailored programme

A fine stay is not a full one. The right programme follows the tastes and the pace of your guests, not the other way around. Before they come, sketch a flexible outline rather than a minute-by-minute schedule.

Start from their real wishes: museums and exhibitions, walks through the quartiers, markets and good tables, or simply wandering. Alternate the highlights with quiet moments, especially if you are hosting children or older parents. Plan one or two days with nothing imposed, where the city reveals itself in the moment. And keep a fallback option for rainy days, always useful in Paris.

Which tables and tickets should be booked ahead?

This is what sets a smooth stay apart from one endured. The best addresses are booked in advance, and some exhibitions sell out weeks ahead.

• Book the restaurants that matter, especially for dinner and the weekend.
• Take museum tickets with a timed slot, to avoid the queues.
• Plan a show or a concert if the occasion calls for it.
• Keep a reliable neighbourhood table, no booking needed, for impromptu evenings.

The idea is not to lock everything down, but to secure the two or three key moments of the stay. The rest can stay open.

How to handle the logistics of daily life?

Once they are settled, your loved ones gain independence if you make getting around easy. A little preparation spares many phone calls:

• A clearly assigned set of keys, with a reminder of the entry codes.
• A transport pass suited to the length of the stay, loaded in advance.
• A small address book of the quartier: bakery, pharmacy, morning café, taxi rank, late-opening shop.
• A simple map of the useful routes, from the home to the places they will want to reach.

This neighbourhood address book is worth its weight in gold: it leaves your guests free to go exploring while you go about your day.

Being available without being on call

The good host is available, not permanently on duty. Agree on a few markers from the start: the moments you will spend together, those where each does as they please, and a meeting point for the evening.

Give your loved ones the room to experience the city on their own terms. A shared lunch, an evening at home, an outing together are often enough to give rhythm to the week. The rest of the time, they enjoy your quartier in full freedom, and you keep your energy for the moments that count.

The departure tidy-up

On the day of departure, the final attention is to ensure everything runs without a hitch: suitcases brought down, taxi ordered on time, a last coffee taken without rushing. Once the door is closed, the home is set back in order: linen changed, rooms aired, fridge cleared of anything perishable, keys collected.

To find a clean home, ready for what comes next, is the true luxury of the aftermath. It is also what makes the next visit easier to arrange.

Drawing all these threads together, preparing the home, the address book, the bookings and the coordination, takes time and a good knowledge of Paris. At French Realty, this is precisely what your dedicated contact takes on: they prepare the home before the arrival, put together the neighbourhood address book, set the bookings and watch over the departure tidy-up, as the arrival preparation service describes. Our organising time is quoted individually, by the time actually spent; the partner services are billed to you separately, at their actual rate. To go further, our guide to managing your property from abroad puts this upkeep back into the routine of an absent owner, and all our guides are gathered in the Owning from abroad category. Yours is the finest part: to enjoy your loved ones.