What to Do in Paris When It Rains: A Local’s 2026 Guide

I have been caught in the rain in Paris more times than I can count. I have been to this city over 50 times; I am married to a Frenchman, and I can tell you with total confidence that a wet day here isn't a wasted one. Some of my best days in Paris have been the grey ones.

Here is the number that puts it in perspective. Paris averages around 111.5 rainy days a year, which works out to roughly one day in three. Rain is not some freak event that ruined your trip. It is a normal Paris day, and this city was quite literally built for it. Glass-roofed passages, a museum on nearly every corner, cinemas showing films in English, department stores you could lose an entire afternoon inside, and boats with warm, dry seats and the best view in the city.

This guide is what I actually do when it rains here. Real addresses, current prices, opening days, three routes that keep you under cover for most of the day, and honest warnings about the famous rainy day recommendations that involve standing outside in a queue getting soaked.

First, What Kind of Rain Are You Dealing With?

Your plan should depend on the kind of rain, and Paris serves up three distinct varieties. Figuring out which one you have is the most useful thing you can do before you leave your hotel.

Light drizzle, what the French call le crachin

Carry on with your day and take an umbrella. This is the most common Paris rain by a wide margin, and it barely interrupts anything. Walking around in it is genuinely pleasant; the crowds thin out at the big sights, and the city photographs beautifully with wet pavements. Slot a covered passage or two between your stops and you will hardly notice it.

On and off showers

Anchor your day on two indoor blocks with a long covered lunch between them. A museum in the morning, a proper sit-down lunch while the worst of it passes over, then a department store or a cinema in the afternoon. The trick is to never be more than a few minutes from a door you can duck into.

An all-day soak

Stop fighting it and commit to one route. This is the day to go deep on a single museum rather than dashing between three, or to walk the covered passages end to end, or to do the thing I do most often, which is to make lunch last three hours. Trying to tick off a list in steady rain is how you end up cold, cross, and standing in a queue on a pavement.

The mistake I see people make: They keep the sunny day itinerary and just add an umbrella. Then they spend the day damp and miserable, queueing outside for things they could have booked, and they decide Paris in the rain is awful. Rebuild the day around cover, and it becomes one of the best days of the trip.

Three Rainy Day Routes in Paris

Most rainy day guides give you a list and leave you to work out the logistics standing on a wet street corner. These are three actual routes, sequenced so you stay under cover as much as physically possible. Pick one and follow it.

Route 1: The Covered Passage Route, 2nd and 9th

This is the most rainproof day in Paris and the one I recommend first. You start under the arcades of the Palais Royal, walk through to Galerie Vivienne and Galerie Colbert, cut down Passage Choiseul, then head to Passage des Panoramas on Boulevard Montmartre. Cross the boulevard, and you are into Passage Jouffroy, which runs directly into Passage Verdeau at the far end. Finish at Galeries Lafayette or Printemps on Boulevard Haussmann.

You are under glass for most of it. There are three or four street crossings in the whole day, and none of them takes more than a minute. Allow a full day if you stop for lunch and browse properly, or a long morning if you keep moving.

Route 2: The Left Bank Route, 5th and 6th

Start at the Musée de Cluny, which is small enough to do properly in ninety minutes and rarely has a queue outside. Have a long lunch in the Latin Quarter. Then walk to the Grande Mosquée de Paris for the hammam, or just for mint tea and pastries in the courtyard café if you do not fancy the full experience. Finish at a cinema on rue des Écoles or in one of the bookshops.

The hops are all short, and being properly warm and dry in a hammam when it is hammering down outside is one of the great Paris pleasures. This is my go-to route in January and February.

Route 3: The One Museum Route, for an all-day soak

When you set it in for the whole day, the honest answer is to stop moving. Pick one major museum and actually look at it. The Orangerie, the Marmottan Monet, or Jacquemart-André are all big enough to fill a morning and small enough that you will not be exhausted by eleven. Have lunch there or nearby, then spend the afternoon in a department store, a hotel bar, or on a boat.

This is the opposite of what every list post implies you should do, and it is far and away the better day.

The Covered Passages: Paris Was Built for This

If you only do one thing on a wet day in Paris, do the covered passages. These are glass-roofed shopping arcades built mostly in the early 19th century, before department stores existed, when the streets were filthy, and the wealthy wanted somewhere dry to shop and be seen. There were once well over a hundred of them. About twenty survive, and they still do exactly the job they were designed for.

I have written a full guide to the covered passages of Paris if you want to go deeper. These are the ones that matter most on a rainy day.

Galerie Vivienne

Address: 4 rue des Petits Champs, 2nd arrondissement

The most beautiful of them all and the one to see if you only see one. Mosaic floors, a glass barrel roof, and a bookshop that has been there since 1826. It is a working arcade rather than a museum piece, so there are proper shops and a very good tea room.

Galerie Colbert

Address: 6 rue des Petits Champs, 2nd arrondissement

Directly next door to Vivienne and often walked past. It is quieter, grander, and emptier, with a domed rotunda worth the two-minute detour. It now belongs to an art history institute, so there isn't much shopping, but it is lovely and dry.

Passage Choiseul

Address: 40 rue des Petits Champs, 2nd arrondissement

The longest of the surviving passages and the least polished, which I rather like. It is a real working passage with a mix of cheap fashion, art supplies, and small cafés, and there is a theatre tucked into the far end of it.

Passage des Panoramas

Address: 11 Boulevard Montmartre, 2nd arrondissement

The oldest one still standing, dating to 1799, and now essentially a glass-covered food street. It is packed with tiny restaurants and wine bars, and it is a brilliant place to be at lunchtime in the rain. It also has a cluster of stamp and postcard dealers that have somehow survived every wave of gentrification.

Passage Jouffroy

Address: 10 Boulevard Montmartre, 9th arrondissement

Straight across the boulevard from Panoramas, which makes the pair of them the best rainy day combination in the city. Jouffroy has the Musée Grévin waxworks, a walking-stick shop, a hotel that opens directly into the passage, and one of Paris's best secondhand bookshops.

Passage Verdeau

Address: 6 rue de la Grange Batelière, 9th arrondissement

Runs directly out of the far end of Jouffroy, so you can walk the two of them without going outside at all. Verdeau is the quietest of the three and full of old prints, cameras, and comic books. It is where I go when I want to buy something I did not know I wanted.

The honest caveat: The passages themselves are fully glazed, but you will cross a street or two between clusters. Over a full day, you will get slightly wet three or four times for about a minute each. That is as close to dry as Paris gets.

The Best Museums for a Rainy Day

Everyone tells you to go to a museum when it rains, and everyone else has had the same idea, so the big ones fill up fast. There is also a detail almost nobody mentions: a fair few Paris museums have their queue outside on the pavement. On a wet day, that matters more than anything else about the museum.

Here is the split that actually helps.

Museums where the queue is indoors, or there is barely a queue

These are the ones to head for without a booking.

• Musée de l'Orangerie, Jardin des Tuileries, 75001. Monet's water lilies in two oval rooms built for them. Around 12.50 euros booked online, 11 euros at the door. Closed Tuesdays. Small enough to do in an hour and a half, which makes it perfect for a quick stop.
• Musée de Cluny, 28 rue du Sommerard, 75005. The medieval museum, home of the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, built on top of Roman baths. Open every day except Tuesday, 9:15-17:45. Check the museum site for current entry prices.
• Musée Marmottan Monet, 2 rue Louis Boilly, 75016. The largest collection of Monet in the world in a quiet mansion out west. 14 euros full price, 9 euros reduced. Tuesday to Sunday, 10 am to 6 pm, late until 9 pm on Thursdays, closed Monday. It is far enough from the center that it never feels crowded.
• Musée Jacquemart-André, 158 Boulevard Haussmann, 75008. A 19th-century private mansion left exactly as its collectors lived in it, reopened in September 2024 after a full restoration. The café is in the original dining room, and it is one of the loveliest places in Paris to sit out a downpour.
• Musée Carnavalet, 23 rue Madame de Sévigné, 75003. The history of Paris and the permanent collection are completely free, with no booking needed. Tuesday to Sunday, 10 am to 6 pm. On a wet day in the Marais, this is the obvious move, and it costs you nothing.
• Petit Palais, Avenue Winston Churchill, 75008. Also free for the permanent collection, also beautiful, with a garden café under cover. Consistently one of the most underrated museums in the city.

Worth it, but the queue is outside

These are wonderful, and I am not telling you to skip them. I am telling you to book a timed slot before you go, because otherwise you will spend forty minutes on a wet pavement.

• The Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay and the Centre Pompidou. Book ahead, always, and doubly so when it rains.
• Sainte-Chapelle. The security queue is on the street with no shelter. It is also at its absolute best in bad light, when the windows glow rather than glare, so book a slot and go.

My rule: If a museum needs booking on a sunny day, it needs booking twice as much on a wet one. Every person whose outdoor plan just collapsed is heading for the same door as you.

The Museums Everyone Forgets

Paris has an enormous number of small, strange, specialized museums, and a rainy day is the perfect excuse to visit one. These are quiet when everywhere else is heaving.

Musée des Arts et Métiers

Address: 60 rue Réaumur, 3rd arrondissement

A museum of scientific instruments and industrial invention, with Foucault's pendulum hanging in a deconsecrated church and early airplanes suspended above a staircase. It is genuinely spectacular, and it is almost always calm.

Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature

Address: 62 rue des Archives, 3rd arrondissement

A hunting and nature museum in a Marais mansion, which sounds unpromising and is in fact one of the most peculiar and brilliant museums in the city. The rooms are arranged like a very eccentric private house.

Musée Nissim de Camondo

Address: 63 rue de Monceau, 8th arrondissement

An 18th-century style mansion preserved exactly as the Camondo family left it, with a devastating family history attached. Small, quiet, and the sort of place where an hour disappears.

Musée des Arts Forains

Address: 53 Avenue des Terroirs de France, 12th arrondissement

Good to know: Advance booking only. You cannot walk in, so sort your ticket before you set out.

A private collection of antique fairground rides and carousels that you can actually ride. It is magical, and it is the one on this list people talk about for years afterward. Just do not turn up hoping.

Go Underground

There is a certain logic to going below Paris when the weather above it is miserable. Both of these are entirely underground, which means the rain stops mattering the moment you are in.

The Catacombs of Paris

Address: 1 Avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy, 14th arrondissement

Good to know: Tuesday to Sunday, 9:45 to 20:30, last admission 19:30. Closed Mondays. 31 euros full price, 25 euros reduced, 15 euros for ages 8 to 17, free under 8. Online booking strongly recommended.

Two kilometers of tunnels lined with the bones of around six million Parisians. It is extraordinary, and it is completely weatherproof once you are down there.

Read this before you go: The entrance queue is on the street with no shelter whatsoever, and it can be very long. Book a timed ticket in advance, and you will walk almost straight in. There are also 131 steps down and 112 back up, and it stays at about 14 degrees year-round, so bring a layer even though you are trying to escape the cold.

The Paris Sewer Museum

Address: 93 Quai d'Orsay, 7th arrondissement

An actual working section of the Paris sewers, reopened after a full renovation, telling the story of how the city moves its water. It is far more interesting than it sounds and children love it. Fair warning that it is cool and damp down there, which is a slightly comic thing to seek out on a wet day, but the engineering is remarkable.

Good to know: Check the museum site for current opening hours and entry price before you go.

Get on a Boat, Seriously

One of my favorite rainy-day things to do in Paris, and almost nobody suggests it, presumably because a boat sounds like a fine-weather activity. It is not. As long as it is not absolutely bucketing down, a Seine cruise in the rain is wonderful.

Bateaux Mouches

Address: Port de la Conférence, near Pont de l'Alma, 8th arrondissement

Good to know: About one hour. Around 20 euros for adults, 10 euros for children under 13, free under 4.

You sit inside, warm and dry, and watch Paris slide past the windows with the rain coming down on the river. The city looks completely different in that light. The boats are far emptier than in summer, so you get a seat by the glass without a fight, and an hour on the water is an hour you would otherwise have spent working out where to shelter.

If it is properly torrential, I would give it a miss, because the visibility goes and you are mostly looking at streaming windows. But in ordinary Paris rain it is one of the best hours you can buy for twenty euros.

Have a Long Lunch and Actually Mean It

This is not a filler suggestion. A long leisurely lunch is a legitimate plan for a wet afternoon in Paris, and it is what I do more than anything else on this list.

The French have never treated lunch as something to get through, and nobody is going to rush you out of your table. Two hours is unremarkable. Three is fine if you are having wine and dessert and the weather outside is doing what it is doing. You will not get a look, and you will not get the bill until you ask for it.

Passage des Panoramas is my first choice for this, because you get a proper lunch and a glass roof at the same time. Otherwise, any decent bistro with a covered terrace will do the job. The point is to stop treating the meal as an interruption to the sightseeing and start treating it as the sightseeing.

The Grands Magasins: Shopping as Shelter

The great Paris department stores are enormous, warm, architecturally spectacular, and completely free to walk around. Even if you buy nothing, they will absorb an entire afternoon of bad weather.

Galeries Lafayette Haussmann

Address: 40 Boulevard Haussmann, 9th arrondissement

Go for the domed stained glass ceiling, which is one of the genuine sights of Paris and costs nothing to look at. There's also a free rooftop terrace, though it is more of a fine-weather proposition.

Printemps Haussmann

Address: 64 Boulevard Haussmann, 9th arrondissement

Next door to Galeries Lafayette, with its own beautiful cupola and a slightly calmer feel. Doing both in one afternoon is very easy, and you barely have to go outside between them.

Le Bon Marché

Address: 24 rue de Sèvres, 7th arrondissement

The oldest department store in the world and by far the most pleasant to spend time in. It is less frantic than the Haussmann stores, and the building itself, which Gustave Eiffel had a hand in, is worth the visit on its own.

BHV Marais

Address: 52 rue de Rivoli, 4th arrondissement

More practical and less glamorous, which is exactly why I like it. It has an enormous hardware department in the basement that is oddly compelling, and it is the place to buy an umbrella when yours has just turned inside out.

La Samaritaine

Address: 9 rue de la Monnaie, 1st arrondissement

Reopened in 2021 after a very long restoration, with a restored Art Nouveau staircase and peacock frieze that are the real reason to go. It is expensive to shop in and free to admire.

Buy Ingredients and Cook Your Own Dinner

If you are staying somewhere with a kitchen, a rainy day is the perfect excuse to shop properly and cook. This is one of my favorite things to do in Paris, and it turns a washout afternoon into the best meal of the trip.

La Grande Épicerie de Paris

Address: 38 rue de Sèvres, 7th arrondissement

The food hall attached to Le Bon Marché is a destination in itself. Cheese, charcuterie, produce, bread, an enormous wine cellar, and shelves of things you will want to bring home. You can spend an hour in there quite happily just looking, and it connects to the department store so you can make a whole afternoon of it without stepping outside.

Then you go back to your apartment, open the wine, cook something with ingredients you would never find at home, and let it rain. I have had evenings like that which I remember far more clearly than the restaurant meals.

Go to the Cinema, and Yes It Will [Most Likely] Be in English

This is the tip I most often give visitors, because almost nobody realizes it. Most big international films in Paris are shown in VO, which stands for version originale. That means the original soundtrack with French subtitles. If the film was made in English, you will hear it in English.

Look for VO next to the listing. VF means version française, which is dubbed into French, and that is the one to avoid unless your French is good. The big central cinemas show mostly VO, so you can walk in off a wet street and watch a new release in your own language.

Le Grand Rex

Address: 1 Boulevard Poissonnière, 2nd arrondissement

Good to know: The Étoiles du Rex backstage tour costs 12 euros full price or 10 euros reduced, lasts about 45 minutes, and needs booking. Not suitable for wheelchair users or anyone claustrophobic.

An Art Deco landmark from 1932 with the largest cinema auditorium in Europe, and a ceiling painted like a night sky over a Mediterranean town. Even if there is nothing there you want to see, the backstage tour is an excellent rainy-day activity in its own right, and hardly anyone knows about it.

Le Louxor

Address: 170 Boulevard Magenta, 10th arrondissement

A 1921 cinema built in Egyptian revival style, abandoned for decades and beautifully restored. It shows a mix of new releases and repertory, and the bar upstairs is a lovely place to wait for a screening.

Le Champo

Address: 51 rue des Écoles, 5th arrondissement

A tiny Latin Quarter institution that has been running classics and retrospectives since 1938. This is the one for an afternoon of old films while the weather does its worst.

Studio 28

Address: 10 rue Tholozé, 18th arrondissement

The oldest arthouse cinema in Paris, up in Montmartre, with light fittings designed by Cocteau and a small bar at the back. Worth the climb even in the rain.

Sit in a Hotel Lobby and Watch Paris Go By

Here is something I do that I have never seen in another rainy day guide. The grand hotel lobbies and bars of Paris are open to anyone who buys a drink, and they are among the best people-watching in the city.

You order a coffee, or a glass of something if it is that sort of afternoon, and you sit in an enormous, beautiful room and watch the world come and go. Guests arriving with luggage and wet coats, people meeting for tea, the whole quiet theatre of a hotel. It costs the price of a drink, and you can stay a very long time.

You do not need to be staying there, and nobody will ask. Walk in like you belong, because for the price of a coffee you do. On a grey afternoon when you have run out of plans, this is the most civilized way I know to spend two hours.

Hot Chocolate and Tea Rooms

A cup of proper French chocolat chaud is thick enough to stand a spoon in and is the correct response to being cold and wet. I have a full guide to the best chocolate in Paris, but these are the ones that suit a rainy afternoon.

Angelina

Address: 226 rue de Rivoli, 1st arrondissement

The famous one, and the chocolat africain really is as good as everyone says. It is served with a separate bowl of whipped cream, and it is closer to melted chocolate than to a drink.

The catch: The queue at the rue de Rivoli branch is on the pavement outside with no cover. In the rain, that is genuinely unpleasant. Go early, go to one of the other branches, or pick somewhere else from this list and save yourself the wait.

Carette

Address: 4 Place du Trocadéro et du 11 Novembre, 16th arrondissement

A proper old-fashioned salon de thé with excellent hot chocolate and very good pastries, and usually somewhere to sit without queueing outside. It is also a two-minute walk from the aquarium, which makes for a very easy wet afternoon.

Un Dimanche à Paris

Address: 4 Cour du Commerce Saint-André, 6th arrondissement

Tucked into a covered passageway in Saint-Germain, which is exactly what you want. A chocolate shop, tea room, and restaurant in one, with a lovely setting.

Warm Up in a Hammam or an Indoor Pool

If you are cold and wet through, nothing else on this list will fix it as thoroughly as this.

Hammam de la Grande Mosquée de Paris

Address: 39 rue Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, 5th arrondissement

Good to know: Open Wednesday to Monday, roughly 10 am to 9 pm, closed Tuesdays. Separate days are set aside for women and for men, and the schedule changes, so check la-mosquee.com before you go. Confirm current prices there too.

A hammam inside the Grande Mosquée de Paris, all mosaic, marble and progressively hotter steam rooms. You can add a gommage body scrub and a massage, then sit in the tea room with mint tea and honey pastries. Stepping out into the rain is one of the best feelings.

Even if the hammam isn't for you, the courtyard café is open to everyone and a beautiful place to sit with a pot of tea while it pours.

Piscine Pontoise

Address: 19 rue de Pontoise, 5th arrondissement

A 1930s Art Deco municipal pool with two levels of changing cabins around the edge and a glass roof. It is a working city pool at city pool prices, and it is beautiful. Swimming while rain hammers on the glass above you is a very good way to spend an hour.

Piscine Molitor

Address: 13 rue Nungesser et Coli, 16th arrondissement

The famous restored 1929 pool, now part of a hotel, with an indoor pool open year-round. It is a treat rather than a bargain, and you pay accordingly, but the setting is extraordinary.

Bookshops and Beautiful Libraries

Paris does bookshops properly, and a few of its libraries are open to anyone who walks in.

Shakespeare and Company

Address: 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 5th arrondissement

The famous English-language bookshop opposite Notre Dame, with narrow staircases and floor-to-ceiling shelves, with beds upstairs for writers who work in the shop in exchange for a place to sleep.

Honest warning: The queue is outside on the pavement with no cover, and the shop is small and gets uncomfortably packed in bad weather. I love it, but on a genuinely wet day it can be a miserable half hour before you even get in. The café next door is a good place to wait, and Galignani below is the drier alternative.

Galignani

Address: 224 rue de Rivoli, 1st arrondissement

The oldest English-language bookshop on the continent, opened in 1801, with wood paneling and a serious art book section. You walk straight in; it is calm, and it is under the arcades of rue de Rivoli, so you are covered on the approach.

Salle Ovale, BnF Richelieu

Address: 5 rue Vivienne, 2nd arrondissement

The oval reading room of the national library, restored and now open to the public for free with no reader card needed. It is a spectacular domed room lined with books that you can simply sit down in and read. It is also about two minutes from Galerie Vivienne, so it fits right into the covered-passage route.

Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève

Address: 10 Place du Panthéon, 5th arrondissement

A 19th-century reading room with an iron-framed vaulted ceiling, and one of the most beautiful interiors in Paris. Access rules for visitors vary, so check before you make a special trip.

Bibliothèque Forney

Address: 1 rue du Figuier, 4th arrondissement

Housed in a medieval mansion in the Marais, specializing in decorative arts and design, with changing exhibitions that are usually free or close to it.

Take a Class

A wet day is the ideal time to do the thing you keep saying you will do on a trip and never actually book. Most of these run two to three hours, all of them are indoors, and they turn a written-off afternoon into the story you tell when you get home.

• Cooking and pastry classes, where you make macarons or croissants and then eat them. Several English-language schools are in the center.
• Perfume workshops, where you blend and take home your own bottle.
• Wine tasting, which needs no justification at all on a grey afternoon in Paris.
• Cheese tasting, which is the same argument as wine but with more cheese.

Book ahead. These are small-group sessions, and they fill up, especially when the forecast is bad and everyone has the same idea.

What to Wear and What to Pack

Waterproof shoes matter far more than an umbrella. This is the single most useful thing I can tell you about Paris rain. Pavements pool, cobbles hold water, and crossings flood at the curb. An umbrella keeps your head dry while your feet get soaked, and wet feet are what actually ruin a day of walking.

• Shoes that will genuinely survive a wet day. Not suede, not canvas, not new.
• A jacket with a hood, so you have both hands free and can cope if the umbrella gives up.
• A spare pair of socks in your bag. This sounds excessive until the day you need them.
• A small umbrella rather than a golf umbrella. Paris pavements are narrow and crowded, and a big umbrella makes you a menace.
• A tote or a bag that closes, so your phone and your book stay dry.

If your umbrella turns inside out, and at some point it will, the basement of BHV Marais at 52 rue de Rivoli will sell you a new one, as will any pharmacy or corner shop the moment it starts raining.

Here is my full guide on what to pack for Paris.

When Does It Actually Rain in Paris? Month by Month

Paris rain is frequent and light rather than heavy and dramatic. The city gets around 649.6mm of precipitation a year, spread over roughly 111.5 days, which is a lot of days and not very much water. Most of it is drizzle.

Measure	Answer
Rainy days per year	Around 111.5, or roughly one day in three
Total rainfall per year	Around 649.6mm
Most rainy days	December, at around 10.7 days
Fewest rainy days	August, at around 6.9 days
Wettest month by volume	May, at around 65mm
Driest month by volume	August, at around 43mm

That gap between December and May is the interesting part, and almost nobody points it out. December has the most rainy days, but they are light ones. May has fewer rainy days, but the rain that falls is heavier. So a December trip means frequent drizzle you can walk through, and a May trip means occasional proper downpours that you wait out.

If you want the full picture for the month you are traveling, I have guides to Paris in October, Paris in November, and Paris in January, all of which cover weather, what to wear, and what is on.

Frequently Asked Questions About Paris in the Rain

One Last Thing

The travelers who have a bad time in Paris in the rain are almost always the ones who tried to keep their sunny day plan and just added an umbrella. They end up damp, cold, queueing on a pavement for something they could have booked, and convinced the city let them down.

Rebuild the day around cover instead. Pick a route, book anything with an outdoor queue, put on shoes that can take it, and let lunch run long. Do that, and you will find what I found somewhere around my tenth or eleventh trip: grey Paris is not a lesser version of the city. It is just a different one, quieter and more beautiful, and I would not trade those days for sunshine.

Have you got a rainy-day discovery in Paris that I missed? Tell me in the comments; I am always collecting them.