Two days, planned tightly enough to feel unplanned. Day one: Luxembourg Gardens, a walking tour, and the discovery that the best thing to do in a Paris park is exactly what the locals do – sit down and enjoy it. A full twelve-hour first day is also the fastest cure for jet lag ever devised.
Day two happened to be Paris Marathon Sunday. The route ran directly past the hotel – close enough to watch the leaders from the room – so the morning turned into a nine-kilometre run alongside the course, and the afternoon into the Louvre with a guide. Dinner both nights came from recommendations, not search results; that's the difference between a weekend in Paris and forty-eight hours near it.
Paris is also a working city for this practice – it sits in the client book, and the same logic applies at every budget: a hotel positioned so the city comes to you, days sequenced so nothing burns time, and tables worth crossing town for, already booked.