Paris 3 days itinerary — How to spend 3 days in Paris & what to do in Paris in 3 days perfectly? (PART 2)

Continue the second day (Day 2) of exploring Paris. In today’s article I will continue to share the second day itinerary of exploring in Paris of me and Di. In addition to the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, there are many places to visit in Paris that I will tell on this 2nd day’s journey. In addition, I will suggest the good exchange money shop with the best rate in Paris that few tourists know.

You can refer to the very detailed itinerary for Day 1 and Day 3 in Paris below:

• [DAY 1] Paris 3 days itinerary — How to spend 3 days in Paris.
• [DAY 3] Is 3 days enough in Paris? — What to do in Paris in 3 days?.

Paris 3 days 2 nights itinerary — Day 3: What to do in Praris in 3 days?

The Lourve Museum

On the second day in Paris, we woke up quite early, not because of jetlag (we slept as dead =)) ) but because we were eager to explore Paris. With Louvre Museum tickets that I bought yesterday, we decided to take a direct bus from our hotel to the Musée du Louvre bus stop, opposite the Louvre Pyramid entrance gate.

Before going to The Lourve Museum, I did a lot of research on information such as when to visit Lourve with less crowded, which entrance gate with the fastest queues … etc. However, when discovering the entrance skip-the-line ticket (no need to queue, Price: EUR15) without having to choose the exact time to visit the museum, so I’m quite confident not thinking much about which gate to get into the museum.

Priority Access Entrance Ticket to the Louvre Museum

Address: Rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris, France

The Louvre Museum is open from 9AM – 6PM (Closed every Tuesday). On the Sunday of 3th week of every month, the museum will be open for free (However, it is extremely crowded, unless you want to save money, I would not recommend going to on that day).

A small tip is that you should go to The Lourve in the early morning like me. I arrived The Lourve around 9:30 am, holding the ticket and go straight inside, no need to queue thanks to the skip-the-line ticket that booked on Klook. And when visiting the museum, the visitors and especially the group tours are quite few. If you haven’t bought the skip-the-line ticket yet, you should go as soon as possible, to line up faster. When I came, the line up to buy ticket also not too long, probably only waited about 30 minutes. As the picture shown above, the line is lined up at 12:30 pm, the line on the left is for visitors with skip-the-line ticket on hand. However, if the museum has a sufficient number of visitors inside, you will have to waiting for the visitors get out and then they will allow new visitors in.

Fun fact: It is said that if you only spend 60 seconds to look at each artifact in The Louvre Museum within 8hrs per day, it takes 75 days to go vist all this museum. It is enough to understand why The Lourve museum was named the largest museum in the world with 72,735 square meters and 225 years of age.

Once inside the museum, you should identify the artworks that you want to see the most and most famous such as: Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo (Venus de Milo), Winged Victory of Samothrace statue… You should take the time to admire these artifacts before the crowded tour groups flock to and cover the view. According to my experience, from 11:30am onwards, there will be a large number of tourist groups flock, so you need to take advantage of early arrival to see famous artifacts first, then go to see other areas of the museum later.

The Louvre’s collection include more than 380,000 artifacts, but only about 35,000 exhibits are on display regularly. The museum is divided into eight display areas: Ancient Oriental, Greek, Roman and Ancient Etruria, Painting, Graphic Arts, Ancient Egypt, Islamic Art, Sculpture, and Decorative Art.

However, as I mentioned above, it is impossible to visit the museum in one day. You should choose the areas with the most famous artifacts such as: Greece, Rome and ancient Etruria – where places the Venus Goddess, the Winged Victory of Samothrace statue, and Diana of Versailles. The famous painting of the Mona Lisa is located in the Painting area with many great works of great Italian artists like Michelangelo, Raffaello or Leonardo da Vinci.

In addition, according to Di’s wishes, we also visit the ancient Egypt area where displays of statues of some Pharaohs such as Ramesses II, Akhenaton and Egyptian mummies.

Although, I’m not a fan of museums at all, so when I came to Paris, I did not intend to go to many museums. However, the Lourve museum is one of the places to visit in Paris if you come to this city. When you come to Lourve, you suddenly realize how vast and profound the history of humanity is. That human in the old days were extremely talented, seemingly unbelievable, but they created such amazingly sophisticated works.

There is also another entrance to the museum located on the side of the museum, next to Hôtel Du Louvre, when I arrived I did not see anyone in line. In case you come late (after 11:30 am) and already have the skip-the-line tickets, I recommend you access this entrance gate.

Tuileries Garden

Exit the Lourve museum and you’ll see the Tuileries garden right in front of you. The Tuileries garden was built in 1664 at the hands of André Le Nôtre. This 280,000 square meters garden is part of the UNESCO World Heritage site on the banks of the Seine River and is a favorite leisure and meeting place for Parisians. Here, you can easily find many famous sculpture statues of Swiss-Italian sculptor Alberto Giacometti and French sculptor Auguste Rodin.

What excites me the most is the way Parisians lying down in luxurious suits and resting in the sun. Or simply the office workers holding a French bread, perhaps for lunch, quietly watching the pigeons are finding food. Occasionally, they would throw some bread crumbs out for them, and the pigeons come and approach closer.

Place de Concorde – Concorde Square

Going until the end of Tuileries garden and exit at the main gate of the garden, the opposite will be Concorde square. This square is located on the end of the eastern of the Champs-Élysées boulevard (the other end of the boulevard is the Arc de Triomphe) which is the second largest square in France and the widest in Paris.

The most striking feature of Concorde Square that I can easily see from afar is the Obélisque (Obelisk) Stone Pillar – one of the two Egyptian stone pillars of Luxor temple that was given to France by the Egyptian viceroy Muhammad Ali in 1831.

The stone pillar Obélisque is over 3,300 years old and is located in the middle of the square on the 9m high stone pedestal. Obélisque stone pillar has a height of nearly 23m, weighs 227 tons, is carved monolithically from pink syenite stone, four sides are carved with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs to show the glory of Pharaoh Ramesses II. It is said that the tip of this stone pillar is plated with real gold.

In addition, the square also features two extremely large and sophisticated fountains. The fountain of the rivers (La fontaine des Fleuves) in the north of then square represents the two major rivers Rhin and Rhône and is also a symbol for the harvest of wheat and grapes. The fountain of the oceans (La fontaine des Mers) in the south side of the square represents the Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic Ocean, and sea fishing.

Pont Neuf

Pont Neuf is the oldest bridge in Paris built in 1578 and took 29 years to complete. This bridge connects the Seine River with the island of Île de la Cité.

In fact, I didn’t come to Pont Neuf and just looked at Pont Neuf from Conciergerie.

Conciergerie

From Concorde Square, we take the train line 1 to Chatelet station, from the station just a few minutes walk to Conciergerie. This was the official residence of the French king from the 10th century to the 14th century and then the national prison from 1392. It used to hold Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon III).

Currently, most of the area of ​​Conciergerie is still used by the French court, the rest is open to the public to visit, this is one of the top tourist attractions of Paris.

Sainte Chapelle Church

Right next to the Conciergerie is the church of the Sainte Chapelle. You don’t need to buy tickets online in advance because I found queuing inside this church very quickly, without having to wait long.

Notre-Dame Cathedral

Walking about 500m from Sainte Chapelle Church and you will see Notre Dame Cathedral. This is probably the most famous church in Paris and also the most crowded place in this city. Notre Dame Cathedral is open free for visitors to visit. However, you will have to wait in a very long line to get inside the church.

When we saw Notre Dame, both me and Di did not make an appointment, together saying “wow” when we saw the massive, intricate Gothic architecture of this church.

One thing you SHOULD NOT miss when coming to Notre Dame Cathedral is to go to the top of the Church. To get to the top, you have to line up in a separate line on the right side of the church. Although the waiting time to queue is very long, I have to wait in line for nearly 1 hour. At around 4 pm, it was sunny but the wind was extremely cold :((. But it was very worthwhile and worth the waiting. The panoramic view of Paris from Notre Dame Cathedral is really so beautiful: ((

To reach the top of Notre Dame Cathedral, you must climb a narrow staircase with 387 steps. It is really tiring and cold. Both up and down are nearly 800 steps. That day, we made friends with a Portuguese couple who came to France for the first time, although they could not speak much English but they were very funny and likable. The uncle used to make jokes to help people could forget the cold and the wait for long queues.

UPDATE: The Notre Dame Cathedral was burned in 2019 and it is now being restored.

Paris 3 days 2 nights itinerary: Where I should exchange money in Paris?

After finishing visiting the Cathedral of Notre Dame, I take the train again and go to exchange money shop. Regarding the money exchange in Paris, I researched very carefully before I’m going to Europe. And even after coming to Paris, I have consulted a lot of money exchange shops on the way to visit places here. Finally, I concluded that the best money exchange shop in Paris is MERSON CHANGE at 33 Rue Vivienne street.

Direction: Take the metro line 3 to Bourse station

During my visit, after checking in many money exchanging shops, $100 can be exchanged €81 – €85. Fortunately, I is determined not to exchange, to go to Merson with $100 can get €89.

If in case you are shopping on the Champs Élysées Boulevard and need to exchange money urgently, you can exchange it at a currency exchange booth in the mall next to the MAC store. $100 here can be exchanged for €85.

• Tip 1: Absolutely DO NOT exchange money at the airport and TRAVELEX, the exchange rate is very low and the commission is deducted.
• Tip 2: If you go to Europe, you should exchange money in Paris. Of the countries I traveled to, Paris has the best exchange rate, Italy is the country with the lowest exchange rate (unacceptably low).

After exchanging money, me and Di take the metro again to Champs Élysées Avenue for a walk and shopping until 10pm and return to our hotel. We also bought take away dinner at a restaurant near our hotel.

The article will end here. Next week, I will continue to share travel experiences, especially shopping in Paris on the 3rd day (Day3).

Thank you for watching! ^-^

You can refer to the very detailed itinerary for Day 1 and Day 3 in Paris below:

• [DAY 1] Paris 3 days itinerary — How to spend 3 days in Paris.
• [DAY 3] Is 3 days enough in Paris? — What to do in Paris in 3 days?.

Some best day tours, trips, activities and transfer services, tickets in, from and to Paris you can refer to

• Private Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) Transfers for Paris
• Paris Museum Pass
• Paris Pass with 1-Day Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Tour
• Mont Saint Michel Full Day Tour from Paris
• Bruges Day Tour from Paris
• Paris Big Bus Hop-On Hop-Off Tours (Open-Top)
• Paris Open Tour Bus Pass
• Eiffel Tower Skip-the-Line Ticket
• The Louvre Museum Skip-the-Line Guided Tour
• 4G SIM Card (Paris/Airport Pick Up) for Europe from Orange

Are you looking for more top things to do in Paris: Tours, activities, attractions and other things? Read more: Paris travel blog — The fullest Paris travel guide blog for a great budget trip to Paris for the first-timers and let’s check it out here.