Paris in November: Weather, Events and the Best Tours

Is November a good time to visit Paris?

November is the value month, with one hard condition attached. From 1 to 18 November Paris is as cheap and as calm as it gets all year. But 1 November is also the day Giverny and the Versailles fountains shut for the winter, so November buys you a quieter, cheaper, smaller Paris.

The eighteen-day window is the finding worth acting on. October's trade fairs finish, the Christmas market and light-switch-on demand has not yet begun, and central Paris briefly has more rooms than visitors. Hotel rates in the first two and a half weeks of November are the lowest in this guide, and the difference against the same room in October is not marginal.

What you give up is the outdoor half of the city. Average highs fall to 11.3C, twelve wet days out of thirty bring Atlantic grey, and mid-month daylight is 9 hours 14 minutes with sunset around 17:10. Paris in November is a museum, cafe and river city rather than a garden and rooftop one, and any itinerary that fights that will be a disappointing one.

The seasonal losses land on the very first day. All Saints, 1 November, is a public holiday and falls on a Sunday in 2026. It is also the last day of the Fondation Claude Monet season at Giverny and the last day of the Versailles Musical Fountains. From 2 November neither is available, and neither returns inside this guide until April. If either is the reason for your trip, November is the wrong month by one day.

Paris weather in November

November averages 11.3C highs and 5.4C lows, with 63mm of rain across twelve wet days and just 9 hours 14 minutes of daylight in mid-month. Sunset is around 17:10 on the 15th, so the practical sightseeing day finishes before most people would think of dinner.

Temperature, rainfall and wet days: Open-Meteo ERA5 reanalysis for Paris, ten-year observed means. Daylight and sunset: day length computed for Paris (48.86N, 2.35E) on the 15th of each month.

Nine hours and fourteen minutes is the number that reshapes a November itinerary. You get roughly a five-hour window of good light, from about 09:00 to 14:00, and then a long lit evening. That is not a small day, but it is a differently shaped one: two proper outdoor stops before lunch, then somewhere indoors, then the illuminated city from five o'clock. Trying to run an August-style schedule in November is what makes people say the month is depressing.

The rainfall total, 63mm, is actually lower than October's 72mm and much lower than December's 76mm, so November is not the wettest month of the ten by volume. Twelve wet days is the same count as October. What makes it feel wetter is the combination with low cloud and short light: rain at 11.3C under a grey sky at three in the afternoon reads as worse weather than the same rainfall in a bright October.

It is also not properly cold yet. At 11.3C average highs and 5.4C lows, November sits well above December, January and February, and frost is uncommon before the last week. A decent coat is enough; you do not need the winter kit that January demands. That combination of mild-but-dark is exactly why November is cheap.

Crowds, prices and what to book ahead

From 1 to 18 November Paris is the quietest and cheapest it gets. Nothing needs booking weeks ahead, museum queues are at their annual low and restaurant tables are available. From roughly the 19th the Christmas season starts to price rooms upwards again.

This is the one month in the guide where the honest advice is to book less. Louvre timed slots are widely available a day or two ahead, the Versailles forecourt queue barely exists, and the Eiffel Tower lift wait at 10:00 on a Tuesday in mid-November is a fraction of the August equivalent. If you like arranging a trip loosely and deciding in the morning, this is the month for it.

Two public holidays punctuate the month and both are worth knowing. All Saints on Sunday 1 November is a holiday that falls on a weekend, so its practical effect is small. Armistice Day on Wednesday 11 November is a midweek public holiday with a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe, and it closes banks, offices and some shops while leaving museums and monuments open.

The turn comes in the third week. Once the Christmas lights are up on the Champs-Elysees and the seasonal markets open, weekend demand returns and the value window closes. We are not publishing a switch-on date because the city sets it each year and it had not been confirmed when we wrote this. What we can say with confidence is that the first eighteen days are the value, and the last ten days are not.

The best tours in Paris in November

Ranked for November: with Giverny closed and the Versailles fountains off, the top of this list is deliberately indoor and evening-weighted. Nine hours of daylight rewards things that work after dark. Prices, ratings and review counts were checked against live GetYourGuide listings on 28 July 2026.

1. Musée d’Orsay Skip-the-Line Tour with Guide

4.8 out of 5 from 1,177 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £60 • 1.5 - 2.5 hours

Ranked first for a specific November reason: the garden Monet built closed on 1 November, and the Orsay is where the paintings he and his contemporaries made are hanging all winter. It is also the highest-rated tour we sell at 4.8, and the Thursday late opening to 21:45 uses an evening that has no daylight in it anyway.

Best for in November: Monet, now that Giverny has shut

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2. Mona Lisa & Louvre Masterpieces Tour

4.7 out of 5 from 7,461 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £50 • 1 - 3.5 hours

Reserved access with a guide turns the Louvre into a defined three-hour route, which is the right shape for a month where useful daylight runs out at 17:10. Take a Wednesday or Friday and use the 21:00 late closing: in November that is four hours of the museum after dark, and the galleries are close to empty.

Best for in November: Filling the dark half of the day

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3. Versailles Skip-the-Line Palace and Gardens Tour

4.7 out of 5 from 11,551 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £49 • 2 hours

This is the Versailles ticket that makes sense from 1 November. The fountains ended on the 1st, so the value has moved decisively from the gardens to the state rooms and the Hall of Mirrors, which is what a guided palace tour actually delivers. Closed Mondays: the 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th.

Best for in November: Versailles once the water has stopped

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4. Louvre Museum Tour: Mona Lisa & Iconic Masterpieces

4.7 out of 5 from 6,071 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £75 • 2 - 3 hours

November is the only month in this guide where a second Louvre visit is a realistic idea, because the museum is quiet enough to be worth returning to and the weather gives you no reason to be outside. This is the longer two to three hour version with reserved access.

Best for in November: A second, slower Louvre visit

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5. Evening Lights Cruise with Bateaux-Mouches

4.3 out of 5 from 2,199 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £15 • 70 minutes - 1.5 hours

With sunset around 17:10 an evening cruise finally happens before dinner rather than after it. At £15 for seventy minutes it is the cheapest thing on this page and the one that most uses November's long dark evening. Departures are from Pont de l'Alma at Port de la Conference in the 8th, which is not the same pier as the Eiffel Tower cruises.

Best for in November: A lit river at a civilised hour

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6. Catacombs Entry & Seine Cruise with Audio Guide

4.5 out of 5 from 1,483 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £98 • 3 hours

The catacombs sit at roughly 14C year round, twenty metres below whatever November is doing above them, which makes this the most weather-independent booking on our Paris list. The Seine cruise paired with it gives you the illuminated river in the same ticket.

Best for in November: Twelve wet days and a stable 14C

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7. Notre-Dame Cathedral Guided Tour, Inside and Out

4.7 out of 5 from 1,676 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £18 • 1 hour

Ranked up because £18 for an hour under cover is good value in a month with twelve wet days, and the cathedral itself is free to enter. To be clear about what you are buying: this is not a skip-the-line ticket. You queue in the general line with your guide, which the listing puts at ten to twenty minutes, and no advance reservation is needed.

Best for in November: An hour indoors for £18

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8. Moulin Rouge Cabaret Show Ticket with Champagne

4.7 out of 5 from 17,909 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £100 • 2 hours

By mid-November it is dark from five, and a fixed seated two-hour show with a drink is exactly the right shape for that. It is also one of the few things in Paris that is no less good in November than in June, because none of it happens outdoors.

Best for in November: An evening that starts in the dark

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9. 3-Course Dinner Cruise on the Seine with Live Music

4.7 out of 5 from 8,452 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £98 • 2.5 hours

Ranked up sharply for the season. A heated two and a half hour dinner cruise solves a November evening completely: you eat, you stay warm, and the monuments are lit for the entire sailing rather than for the last twenty minutes as they would be in August.

Best for in November: Dinner and the lit monuments in one booking

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10. Macaron Class at Galeries Lafayette

4.3 out of 5 from 1,352 verified GetYourGuide reviews • from £50 • 1.5 hours

A ninety-minute hands-on class under the Galeries Lafayette dome, which is about as good a use of one of November's twelve wet afternoons as Paris offers. You leave with four macarons you made and two recipes, and the store itself is worth the detour once the Christmas display goes up late in the month.

Best for in November: A wet afternoon with something to show for it

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Off the November list, and this is the month it matters most: the Giverny day trip and the open-top sightseeing bus. Giverny is not a ranking decision, it is a closure. Monet's garden shut on 1 November and does not reopen inside this guide until April, so we have moved it into the closures section rather than leave it on a list you cannot act on. The bus is a judgement call: an open upper deck at 11.3C with twelve wet days is not worth £33. The Mont-Saint-Michel fourteen-hour day also drops out, because nine hours of daylight cannot hold it. Gaps we cannot fill: no Christmas market tour and no Champs-Elysees lights experience, both of which would belong on a late-November list if we stocked them.

Events and festivals in November 2026

November opens with two closures rather than an event: 1 November is All Saints, a public holiday falling on a Sunday, and the last day of both the Giverny season and the Versailles fountains. Armistice Day on Wednesday 11 November is the month's other public holiday.

The two seasonal endings on 1 November are the most consequential dated facts in this entire guide, because they are the only ones that remove a whole product from sale. The Fondation Claude Monet at Giverny and the Versailles Musical Fountains both finish on that Sunday. Everything else in Paris, the towers, the museums, the cruises, the catacombs, the cabarets, runs all twelve months.

Armistice Day on Wednesday 11 November is a full public holiday with a wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe. Because it falls midweek, some French workers take the Monday and Tuesday as a bridge, which briefly firms up domestic demand around that date. Museums and monuments keep normal hours.

From roughly the 19th the Christmas season begins to assert itself: lights go up, seasonal markets open along the Champs-Elysees and at La Defense, and the department store windows on Boulevard Haussmann are unveiled. We are not publishing specific 2026 dates for any of that because the city and the stores set them annually and they had not been confirmed at the time of writing. Treat the last ten days of November as early December on price.

What is closed in November

Two things close for the season on 1 November and neither returns inside this guide until April: Monet's garden at Giverny, and the Versailles Musical Fountains. Everything else follows the usual weekly rhythm, with five Mondays in November 2026 affecting Orsay and Versailles.

Weekly closing days and fixed holiday closures read directly from the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay and Chateau de Versailles official sites on 29 July 2026. Seasonal opening dates for 2026 are set by each site and can move, so confirm before you book a non-refundable trip around one.

This is the closure section that matters most in the guide, because November is where the Paris year genuinely changes shape. On 1 November the Fondation Claude Monet closes its gates at Giverny for the winter, and the Versailles Musical Fountains run for the last time. Those are the only two seasonal shutdowns in the whole Paris calendar, and they both happen on the same day.

The practical consequence is that our Giverny day trip is not something you can book in November, December, January, February or March. We have taken it off those five month pages rather than list a product you cannot use, and we have put it here instead. The foundation sets its own opening date each spring and had not announced the 2027 one when this page was written, so if a spring trip depends on it, check the foundation directly before booking travel.

For Versailles, the fountains stopping does not close anything, it changes what a ticket is worth. The Full Access passport carries the Musical Fountains and Musical Gardens upgrade, and from 2 November that upgrade has nothing to unlock. A guided tour of the state rooms is the better November purchase. The gardens and the park stay open every day of the week including Mondays, and an empty Versailles park under November light is one of the better free things within an hour of central Paris.

What to wear and pack for Paris in November

Pack for 11.3C days, 5.4C nights, twelve wet days and a 17:10 sunset. November in Paris is mild rather than cold, so a good coat beats winter kit, but the short daylight means you will spend more of your walking hours in the dark than in the light.

The mistake people make is over-packing for cold. November highs of 11.3C are seven degrees above January's, and frost is uncommon before the last week, so thermal layers are unnecessary weight. What you actually need is waterproofing and a scarf: it is the damp and the wind off the river that makes 11C feel colder than the number, not the air temperature itself.

Footwear does more work than anything else in November. Twelve wet days on limestone pavements means standing water at every crossing, and the museum days that dominate a November itinerary involve several hours of standing on hard floors. One pair of properly waterproof shoes is worth more than any other item in the bag.

• •Genuinely waterproof shoes rather than water-resistant ones
• •A warm scarf; the damp off the Seine does more than the air temperature
• •A coat with a hood, for twelve wet days
• •Layers you can shed indoors; Paris museums run warm
• •No need for thermals; November highs are 11.3C, not January's 7.3C

How we chose these tours

We rank on seasonal fit first and verified GetYourGuide rating second, so the experiences that actually work in November's daylight, rainfall and opening calendar sit highest. Every price, rating and review count on this page was checked against the live listing on 28 July 2026.

1. Seasonal fit first. Each of the 26 tours we stock is scored against November on daylight hours, sunset time, wet days, temperature and whether the thing it visits is actually open. A tour that cannot deliver its own selling point this month drops out, and we say which ones and why.
2. Then rating, then review volume. Where two tours fit the month equally well, the higher verified GetYourGuide rating wins, and review count breaks any remaining tie. Both numbers are public and you can check them against the listing.
3. Nothing is invented. Prices, star ratings and review counts come from the live product page. We do not publish an opening date, closure or festival date we could not confirm from the venue itself, and where a 2026 date has not been published yet we say so instead of guessing.
4. We say what we do not sell. Where the obvious thing to do in November is not something we can book you onto, it goes in the text as advice rather than being quietly left out or replaced with a product that does not fit.
5. We earn a commission. Booking links go to GetYourGuide and pay us if you book. That does not change the ranking, and it is why the reasoning on every entry is written out rather than left implied.

FAQs about Paris in November