5 Days in Paris – Day 3

Day 3 in Paris was very interesting.  On the evening of our 2nd day there, the metro strike began and continued into our 3rd day.  Since we stayed right outside of Paris in Saint-Ouen, walking was definitely out of the question.  Our saving grace was the existence of scooter rentals.  Paris has a lot of dockless scooters on the sidewalks, courtesy of companies like Lime and Bird.  Since that was our only option, we downloaded the Lime app and got some scooters and drove into the city.  On subsequent days, we rented scooters when we wanted to cover more ground.  It’s definitely a fun way of exploring the city.

My friend happened to also be in Paris on this day, so we decided to meet up for morning pastries at Gosselin.  It’s about two blocks from the Louvre, and the pastries are to die for.

We spent the morning browsing the Louvre.  I love museums, so I will say it’s absolutely worth the trip.  But I think some people have a negative experience because it’s so much to take in.  When we got there, we immediately made a beeline to say hi to the Mona Lisa.  Then we picked 3 wings to spend our time there.  If you like impressionist art, make sure to go to Musée d’Orsay.

Around noon, we started our trek to Arc de Triomphe.  It’s a straight shot so really easy to navigate.  We first walked through Jardin des Tuileries.  Man, every garden in Paris was so incredibly dreamy and relaxing.  There were a lot of statues throughout the garden.  You might even see a few goats tending to the lawn.  We then walked to Place de la Concorde, which ahem, if you love The Devil Wears Prada, you’ll recognize this as the fountain where Anne Hathaway’s character tosses her cellphone in at the end of the film.    Yes, I’m embarrassed to say I attempted to recreate the iconic scene.  No, it did not work out.  Then we popped by the Grand Palais, which is an exhibition hall where they host events such as the Paris fashion week).

We then walked along Champs-Élysées.  From a lot of Parisian blogs I read in preparation for the trip, I gathered that Champs-Élysées is the Paris equivalent to Times Square.  Basically, lots of tourists, locals typically do not come to this area.  The shopping here was pretty incredible.  On both sides of the street, there were rows and rows of stores ranging from Abercrombie & Fitch (lol) to Louis Vuitton.  Although I’m not a big shopper, I did buy a tote from Longchamp to replace the one I had in college.  Along the street, there are a ton of small cafés where you can have afternoon tea and pastries.  Laudrée has its flagship location here with a tearoom.  We didn’t visit, but it looked really nice.

Finally, we made it to our destination, Arc de Triomphe.  For €12, you could climb the staircase up to the top.  In my opinion, this was absolutely worth it and gave the best view of Paris.  We then got another crepe from a street cart, watched the sunset, and scootered back to our Airbnb.

More Paris blog posts:
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Paris Travel Tips