Paris can get overwhelming in terms of the sights and attractions it offers travelers. If you’re on a tight schedule, the Paris Pass is a great way to see what the city has to offer. It combines access to some 60-odd attractions with a Metro Travelpass that covers public transport for all of central Paris. Apart from the obvious attractions like the Louvre, the Pantheon and the Palace of Versailles, it also includes a hop-on hop-off bus tour, an afternoon wine tasting and a river cruise.
The Paris Passes come in 2, 4 & 6 day flavours, and I grabbed a 2-day one when I visited for the weekend. At €99 it did seem like a pricey additional expense, but it payed for itself after just one day. I’m not usually a fan of bus tours, but this one is a great way to get from sight to sight, making stops at 9 attractions, and coming every 15 minutes.
Armed with the included guide book, I hopped from Notre Dame to the Louvre, followed by a lunch-time break and some shopping around the streets surrounding the Grand Palais. After getting back onto the bus I jumped off at the Eiffel Tower - I was a bit peeved that a trip up the Eiffel Tower wasn’t included, but I guess you can’t have everything! I finally parted with the bus at Orsay Museum, and managed to squeeze in the Ô Château Wine Tasting before calling it a day.
One of the biggest advantages is that you get to skip the lines - instead of wasting time in the frustrating queues for tickets at each attraction, the Paris Pass lets you head straight to the front. On my second day, I checked out a couple of the museums, and looking at the lines, I don’t think I would’ve made it to half if I didn’t have the pass. Why spend such a short holiday waiting in lines?
My visit ended with the breath-taking views from the 56th floor of Paris’s second tallest sky scraper - Tour Montparnasse. In a word, amazing!
