The
About-France.com guide to Paris: getting round Paris, tourist
attractions and other things to see and do.
| PARIS ! Paris is Europe's most fantastic
city, a place that has everything for the traveller or
visitor. Whether you visit Paris on a day trip, Paris in the Spring,
Paris for a week or for far longer, this is a city that has it all!
Museums, theatres, shops, fantastic historic monuments, a beautiful
riverscape, Paris has all of these. About-France.com
helps you plan your visit to Paris, and get the best out of your stay
in the French capital. |
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About-Paris 1:
PARIS TRANSPORT TIPS
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Making the best use of Paris public
transport.
 Like
most French
cities, Paris is not a place
to visit by car. Parking can be an expensive nightmare (though less so
than London), and the city has a great public transport network, with a
fast underground network that stretches well into the suburbs.
The public transport system includes buses, the underground and
overground metro,
the RER (express transit metro), and of course plenty of taxis. Taxis
in France are ordinary vehicles with a taxi sign on the roof, not
special vehicles as in London.
Visitors who plan to use lots of public transport in Paris may find
that the best or cheapest solution is to take a visitor's pass, "Paris Visite",
though this is not necessarily the case (see
below). The Paris Visite passes are available on a 1, 2, 3 or
5 day basis, and cover all types of official public transport in the
central area or central area and suburbs, depending on the option
chosen.
For more ideas on keeping down your costs, visit the Budget
Paris page
The main Paris passes:
There
are several different "passes" available for visitors to Paris, and it
is a good idea not to get the wrong one, as this will mean either
paying too much or else getting less than you bargained for.....
The main passes are:
- Paris
Visite - giving unlimited use of the metro / RER / bus
network for a given numer of days. Prices
start at €9.00 for a one day adult pass or 14 €uros for 2 days (Spring
2010). Full details in English, plus downloadable Paris Metro and
public transport maps from the Paris
Transport website,
- Paris
Pass - giving free use of public transport, Cars Rouge tour buses, and
admission to some 60 monuments / museums in and around Paris - though
NOT the Eiffel Tower. Prices
start at 89 €uros for two days.
- Paris
Museum pass - giving unlimited admission to some 60
monuments / museums in and around Paris, excluding the Eiffel Tower. Prices start at 30
€uros for two days.
Other
passes:
- Hop-on
hop-off sightseeing bus pass for les Cars Rouges, open-top
guided tour buses linking nine major sites; a two-day pass costs just
22 €., and can be bought on the bus. An alternative is Cityrama, where
a 2-day hop-on hop-off pass costs 32 €, and covers four different
routes. Les Cars Rouge are now included in the Paris
Pass
- The
"Batobus" and travel on the Seine. The Batobus are river
buses that go up and down the Seine from the Eiffel tower to the quai
de Montebello (near Notre Dame). There are 8 stops in all. A day pass
in 2010 costs 13 €, and a 5-day pass costs 20 € per adult.
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PASSES are often the easiest solution, but not necessarily the cheapest
...
USING THE METRO and Buses
 If you plan to use the Paris metro or the bus
less than six times in a day, opt
for a "carnet" (pronounced
Car-nay). This is simply ten standard tickets at a reduced rate (€
11.10 for ten in March 2009). Carnet tickets have no date limit, and
can be shared among members of a group. If you have some left over at
the end of your stay, keep them for next time. They are valid on buses,
the metro and the "RER" within the cental area, and on metro and RER
journeys allow as many changes as you want.
Though the Metro is mainly an underground system, several parts of the
network are above ground, and offer an interesting way to see Paris
from well above street level.
Note:
Neither a standard Paris metro ticket nor a central Paris pass are
valid on the RER for travel into the suburbs, and
notably for travel to Charles de Gaulle or Orly airports. For
such destinations, you must buy a specific ticket.
Specific destination tickets and carnets are available at all metro
stations, and from automatic machines which accept credit cards.
Carnets can also be bought in some main French railway stations outside
Paris.
Finding your way in the metro.
This is no problem. Using the maps available, check the line number and
terminus station of each line you want to take. If you need to change
routes, follow the "Correspondance" signs on the platform and through
the foot tunnels; these indicate the line numbers and the termini. Just
follow the right one. The RATP (Paris transport authority) provides
free maps which are usually available in hotels, metro stations and
other places.
2. Paris Airport connections
Paris has two airports, Charles
de Gaulle (CDG) to the north and Orly (ORY) to the south.
If you arrive in Paris by air, use public transport to get into central
Paris; unless you can squeeze five passengers into a taxi, it will
certainly be cheaper.
Charles
de Gaulle Airport:
Terminal 1. (British airlines, US
carriers, etc.) Take the airport shuttle to "railway station". Once you
reach the station (5 minutes) buy ticket/s for central Paris on the
"R.E.R." (the express regional network) . Ask for Paris zone urbaine,
pronounced Paree, zone yure baine.
See
tips and further information below.
Terminal 2. (Air France and
partners). The train station is in the terminal. Follow the signs for
Gare TGV / Railway station. Once you reach the ticket office for "RATP"
(Paris urban transport network / RER/ Metro) buy ticket/s for central
Paris on the "R.E.R." (the express regional network) . Ask for Paris
zone urbaine, pronounced Paree, zone yure baine.
Click this link for a photo-tour of the
journey from CDG Terminal 2 to Cental Paris
See
tips and further information below.
Useful info: the
Paris CDG train-station is served by direct TGV high-speed trains
linking directly with most French cities: Lille, Lyon, Marseille,
Besançon, Dijon, Tours etc.... Check times! This is far easier than
taking the RER into Paris, then carting your luggage through to a
mainline train terminus.
Orly
Airport
Take the "Orlyval" light transit shuttles. These take you directly in 8
minutes to the RER (express suburban train) station at Antony. Here you
connect to RER line B for a direct and rapid train journey into central
Paris. You can also take the Orlybus shuttle direct from the airport,
the bus route terminates at Denfert
Rochereau metro station in the southern part of central
Paris
General Paris transport tips:
TIP -
passengers arriving at Charles de Gaulle: do not take the
slow trains that stop at all or most stations into central Paris. Check
on the departure board over the platform. Slow trains are slow, and
fill up at all the stations in the northern suburbs - among the less
desirable of Paris suburban areas. So wait for a fast train (one out of
two for much of the day); you may wait ten minutes longer, but you'll
reach Gare du Nord only about 2 minutes behind the slower train. Fast
trains are often non-stop to Gare du Nord, others have one or two
intermediate stops only. Once into central Paris, fast trains stop at
all stations. You will probably need to change once in central paris;
your ticket will take you through to any central destination.
On your way in to Paris, note the futuristic "Stade de France" (French
national football stadium) on your right as you pass St. Denis.
TIP - If you arrive by air in
Paris for a day trip, buy the 1 day "Paris visite" visitor pass for
zones 1-5, which includes the airports. that way you also have
unlimited hop-on hop-off public transport during your day in Paris
TIP - Changing trains at "Chatelet" metro hub.
Chatelet is the biggest interconnection station on the Paris metro
system: three main RER routes cross here, notably B (for the airports)
and A (serving the Gare de Lyon and Disneyland). If you are changing
from a southbound "B" train to a south/east bound "A" train, (for
instance, coming from Charles de Gaulle airport and heading for Gare de
Lyon or Disneyland, a common combination), just cross the platform. The
same goes if you are taking these routes in the opposite direction (for
example coming from Gare de Lyon and heading for Charles de Gaulle
airport). Nothing could be simpler!
For other changes, follow the indicator boards, having noted which RER
or metro routes you want.
TIP - Your ticket. Always keep
your ticket until your journey is finished, even if it is just a single
journey ticket. If you use the RER in the central urban area of Paris
(which you can do, of course), you will need to put your ticket through
the machine both to get onto the platforms and again to get out of the
RER area.
Click here for Paris tourist
attractions guide
: Eiffel tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre, Montmartre, Moulin Rouge, and
much more
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In
an emergency in Paris:
24
hr chemist / pharmacies:
a) 84, av des Champs-Elysées 75008, tel
0145
62 02 41
b) 6, place Clichy 75009, tel
0148
74 65 18 .
English-speaking
pharmacies:
British Pharmacy
62, Avenue des Champs-Elysées
75008 Paris
0143
59 22 52
British-American pharmacy,
1 rue Auber, 75009
0142 65 88 29
English-language
crisis line;
SOS-Help
Daily 3 pm - 11pm
01 46 21 46 46
Ambulance:
Call/phone: 15
Hospitals:
Hertford British Hospital: 3, rue
Barbès, 92300 Levallois-Perret
Tel 0146 39 22 22
American Hospital of Paris
63, Bd Victor Hugo
92200 Neuilly-sur-Seine
0146
41 25 25 |
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Eating out in Paris:
book
your table online at a Paris restaurant. No language problems,do it all in English! Hundreds of restaurants to choose from:
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Guided
tours of Paris
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