Another full day in Paris. Well, today is full of walking – 3km walk from Lourve to Arc de Triomphe. Arriving at the Lourve early in the morning, we proceed to walk through the whole Champ Elysees via the musee’s garden.

Arc de Triomphe has a sister at the Lourve garden - Arc de triumph du Carrousel. Proceeding towards the garden, we see lots of flowers – it is spring anyway. The weather was nice for walking, sunny but breezy. We made several stops at the garden to buy some Nutella crepes. Okay, everyone visiting Paris will buy these crepes from the street vendors. I lost count on how many times I ate these babies.

On our way, we stopped by at the Place de La Concorde, the home of the Obelisk of the Luxor. This Obelisk was brought from Luxor. Champ Elysees is a really long boulevard, filled with various international brands and boutiques. We stopped at a convenient store to buy some snacks and go on entering few of these boutiques. We went into Sephora, Miss Selfridge, ZARA, Guerlain etc. We did not do our shopping here. Why? The tax (VAT) return rate for goods purchase in Paris is lower that Nice/Rome. Meaning, you will claim less tax return when you buy in Paris. These numbers can be checked at the customs website. To be eligible for VAT return, you have to spend minimum 150 Euro.

We went into the famous Laduree. This store is charming, classic yet very welcoming. They offers various flavor of French macaroon. We bought some macaroon so we can enjoy it at the hotel later. I love chocolate, rose and caramel flavours.

We reached the end of Champ Elysees when we reached the Arc de Triomphe. Some maintenance work was being done on the arc. Nevertheless, the icon symbol of Paris stood proudly in the middle of a busy street. This arc was build in remembrance of those who fought and fell in the Revolutionary War. Inside the arc, the engraved the names of the fallen.

We took the metro below the Arc de Triomphe to go back to the hotel for lunch. After having a little nap, we went out again to enter the world’s famous musee. As I mentioned in the Tips, there will be free entrance on every Friday evening. We were lucky, the line are not long and it was not crowded inside. The Lourve is huge, comprising of different wings and complex that dedicated to each period/ theme. There is a lot of Greek’s Gods statue in here.

We finally arrived at the centerpiece of the musee which is the Mona Lisa. It was placed in a heavily guarded glass casing. There is a lot of people trying to catch a glimpse and take selfie with the Mona Lisa. One of my favourite room in the Lourve is the Gallery of Apollo. This room has an exquisite painting on its ceiling dated from 16th Century.It was made for Henri IV of France.

Of course, we did not miss the tourist photo opp of the infamous Lourve pyramid that was made famous thanks to The Da Vinci Code.