Organizing 3 days in Paris

Lee Ann, the first question is: are you arriving on Tuesday and leaving Saturday, i.e. do you have three full days? Answer that and people will be able to help you better. Think quality not quantity.

Do the hop on hop off bus the first two days. Takes you to all the major sights and neighborhoods and you get a real good orientation to the layout of Paris from a double decker bus and saves a lot of map planning time. About 32E for 2 days. Almost pays for itself in saved Metro and taxi fares. Then fill in what you missed the third day. The Rodin gardens are two blocks from Napoleon's Tomb so if you have a museum pass you can do both efficiently.
I like Rue Cler and staying at Hotel Relais Bosquet in the Eiffel Tower neighborhood but the Marais and Montmartre walks are infinitely more interesting and enjoyable. Don't forget the Seine cruise at night.

I haven't seen the Dali exhibition in Paris, but my experience in other cities is that these franchised Dali exhibitions tend to exhibit fairly secondary works at high prices. I would suggest seeing a wider range of surrealist material at the Museum of Modern Art in the Pompidou Centre.

Seeing three art galleries including the Louvre in one day is not a good idea, you'll end up completely exhausted and suffering from sensory overload.

Since you want to see a number of museums, I would strongly recommend getting a three-day Paris Museum Pass. This will probably save you money, will save some time buying tickets, and will also allow you to make several shorter visits to the Louvre instead of trying to see lots of things in one go. This pass also covers the Pantheon and Sainte-Chapelle. It will be faster to buy the PMP at one of the less popular sites like the Jacquemart-Andre or the Pantheon.

Lee Ann,

I don't know if it is possible at this point but, if you can, move your travel dates back a day or two and enjoy a unique Parisian experience called Nuit Blanche ("White Night"). This year Nuit Blanche is on Saturday night, October 4th. This is an all-night event where many of the museums are open until the early morning hours and are free to enter as are many of the usual tourist sites. The city is lit up for the night and there will be a lot of outdoor exhibits. It is a once-a-year event and there will be a lot of people out and about until the sun comes up! If you have never done it before and the morning is nice, grab a spot on the Place Trocadero and watch the sun rise beyond the Eiffel Tower.

Hi Everyone,
Thank you for your great suggestions and thoughtful replies. I want to clarify that we are arriving on Tues afternoon and departing on Sat early morning with no flexibility in the departure day. We have 3 full days. What I am trying to accomplish is putting together daily itineraries that would combine one or two museum visits with another site or area walk. We don't plan to visit more than 2 museums in one day. And we have been to Paris before and visited the many of the major sites; except the Louvre. This time we are trying to see what we missed and hopefully get a sense of Parisian life by spending some time on the walks Rick Steves suggests.

I am asking for suggestions about how to put this puzzle together and what to eliminate. The Dali museum is on the hit list.

Thank you!
Lee Ann

Things like the Rodin, Montmartre walk, Saint Chappelle, Pantheon are all sites than can be in two hours or so apiece without rushing it. Louvre can be multi-day experience or just a few hours as well - it all depends upon what your interests are. If the prime reason for going to the Louvre is to see The Mona Lisa, that is a relatively quick visit as well. The Orangerie was closed last time I visited, so I can't speak to it but it its like the Orsay, its a half-day visit. Save the various neighborhood walks (Rue Cler, Left Bank ) for the evening hours after the museums are closed, also the people watching is better in the evening

Eliminate rue Cler walk about. Boring.

Get a map and four colored pencils. One color is for museums, one for other sites, one for walks.

Make dots on the map with the colors.

Group them with a fifth, erasable, black pencil for each day.

Put no more than two museums in any group. Include the Louvre on the night it's open late.

Use the fourth color for new things that pop up. One will be a closer, better market than stupid Rue Cler.

I don't understand the first post in that it has no points in common with your list except for a couple museums and Sainte-Chapelle..

Sorry, I was wrong about the Paris Museum Pass. It's actually available for two or four days, not three, I got mixed up with the three-day Berlin museum pass.

I think the Paris Museum Pass is still a good idea. Cost it out to see which one makes better sense. I think you can do the Louvre and Orangerie in one day. I haven't been to the Jacquesmart-Andre Museum but if you schedule your "museum day" on Wed or Fri when the Louvre is open late, you might be able to do all three. You still need to stand in the security line for Saint Chapelle but the line for the Pantheon should be relatively short. The Rodin gardens are only 2 euro so if you decide on the 2 day pass, you can stop in there on a different day. Even if you've been to Paris before, I still think it's important to allow time for sitting in a cafe, people watching at the Champs du Mars, etc. The Seine boat ride is also a must do for me. Have a great time in Paris!

The most recent version of the TripAdviser app is a wonderful tool for the kind of planning you're trying to do. You pick your preferred sites and it displays them on the map. You can then add additional information to that map like metro stops. Eliminating all of the irrelevant information on a traditional map is really helping me to define how to most efficiently see what interests me. I'm using it on an iPhone 5. You might try downloading the app – it's free.

plan a trip.

FWIW, Jacquemart-Andre is really a mansion full of beautiful furniture and art (including several Rembrandts), more than a museum in the traditional sense. It needn't take a lot of time.

I agree about Dali, not the time or place for him. And I wouldn't spend time in the Pantheon unless you're deeply into the "Who's Who" of French history. Many (not all) of the people buried there did important things and had interesting lives, but you won't learn much about them just looking at their tombs. Well worth seeing the building from outside, and maybe inside if you're that into neoclassical architecture, but a quick stop at best IMHO.