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Paris Tourism - Travel to Paris

        

Paris is the capital of France and - with 2 million people living in the center and some 10 million people in the suburbs (la banlieue) - one of the largest cities in Europe.

Travel to Paris - Paris Tourism
The Eiffel Tower, Paris

Table of contents

Understand Paris Tourism

Districts in Paris

Paris is divided into 20 districts or arrondissements; these are numbered from 1 to 20 in a clockwise spiral from the center.

Get into Paris

Paris can be reached by car, bus, train, plane.

Travel to Paris By Train

The Thalys high-speed train, which runs to daily to/from the Netherlands and Belgium, can be a bit expensive.

The high-speed TGV train (Train à Grande Vitesse) runs several times a day to Nice and Avignon in the south, Geneva or Lausanne, Switzerland and Dijon in the east, and connects with trains and ferries for the passage to England in the west.

Intercity and local trains leave for all parts of Europe, including overnight trains to San Sebastian in Spain, Porto and Lisbon in Portugal.

The Eurostar service ( http://www.eurostar.com/ ) connects Paris with London and Brussels directly, and many other destinations indirectly through the various west European rail services. Travel time between Paris and London currently averages at 2 hours 40 minutes and will decrease even further with new tracks being laid up to 2007.

There are several stations serving Paris, so make sure you confirm where your train leaves from:

For all of the above lines, including Thalys and Eurostar, you can purchase tickets online through the web site of the SNCF (French national railway authority). Tickets can be booked up to two months in advance. There are significant discounts the earlier you book, and most special tariffs require you to book at least two weeks in advance. Surprisingly, round trip tickets (aller-retour) with a stay over Saturday night can be cheaper than a single one-way ticket (aller simple). A very limited selection of last minute trips are published on this web site every Tuesday, with prices cut up to half.

Travel to Paris By Bus

Travel to Paris By Plane

Paris is served by two airports:

You should not discount the time it takes you to reach the city itself. For CDG this means roughly an hour via train (RER) to Metro Chatelet; the price is 8.30€. Orly is roughly forty minutes via the OrlyBus, which departs from Metro Denfert-Rochereau; the price is 5.80€.

For more information, including arrival/departure times, check the official Paris Airports site.

You can frequently get great prices for flights within Europe by flying into or out of Beauvais Airport, which is used by many discount airlines (notably RyanAir). The airport provides a bus service to and from Paris (Metro Port Maillot) for 10&euro (cash only).

Car

Infotrafic shows up-to-date trafic info.

Get around in Paris

Paris has an excellent metro system. For short visits, a carnet of ten (slightly discounted) tickets can be bought for 10.50€ at any station.

If you're staying a bit longer it might be interesting to get a Carte Orange Hebdomadaire (1 week pass, 15.4€ for Paris and inner suburbs) or Mensuelle (1 month pass). For the Carte Orange you need one small photograph, for which there are cabins in most bigger metro stations. Note that an Hebdomadaire (eb-DOH-ma-DAYR: in French you don't pronounce the H) starts on Mondays and a Mensuelle on the first of the month.

The Carte Orange is also valid in the Noctambus, the night bus, where tickets normally cost 2.70€. Women travellers should probably avoid taking the Noctambus on their own. Fortunately taxis are relatively cheap, especially at night, when there are no traffic jams to be expected.

RATP is responsible for public transport including metro, buses, and the high speed inter-urban trains (RER). Current fares can be found at their website.

See Paris

Check out the skyline from the roofs of 'Printemps' and 'Gallery Lafayette'

Museums - Paris Tourism

Do Paris

Events

Cinema

In Parisian cinemas most non-French movies are subtitled (called "version originale" or "v/o"). Still it's probably a good idea to be sure of a movie having subtitles if your French is not adequate to follow fast conversations.

www.allocine.fr has information on "every" cinema in Paris.

Learn

Paris is an excellent place to learn French. Université de Paris IV offers well-known courses for foreigners in French language and culture, which start at various times of year and last for various periods of time.

Paris also has many universities, where you can learn about anything.

There is also the parallel system of elite Grandes Ecoles, generally only available to those who pass through the gruelling system of concours, or competitive exams, which demand years of preparation.

Work

Buy

Eat - Travel to Paris

Edible-Paris.com - well-designed information site that offers innovative gastronomic itineraries in the French capital

When you are looking for a restaurant in Paris, be a little careful of those where the staff readily speak English. These restaurants are usually - but not always - geared towards tourists. It does make a difference in the staff's service and behaviour whether they expect you to return or not.

For vegetarians, eating in restaurants will require some improvisation. When mentioning that you're vegetarian you usually will be proposed something fishy, since there are hardly any restaurants with vegetarian plates on the menu.

In Rue des Rosiers (4th arrondissement) it is possible to get delicious falafel in the many Jewish restaurants. Another falafel place is at 112 Rue Oberkampf (11th arrondissement). Also, in Rue Belleville, close to Place Frehel there is a little falafel place. Take away falafel usually goes for €4 or less.

Another low budget option is to ask for a barquette de frites in the omnipresent shoarma places.

Also look at the North African restaurants which often serve vegetarian couscous.

For a good list of vegetarian restaurants in Paris take a look on HappyCow.net.

For seafood lovers, Paris is a great place to try moules frites (steamed mussels and French fries), oysters, sea snails, and other delicacies.

Meat specialties include venison (deer), boar, and other game (especially in the fall and winter hunting season), as well as French favorites such as lamb, veal, beef, and pork.

Drink

Monaco is a mix of beer and lemonade with a bit of grenadine syrup added.

Kir is a sweet aperitif of white wine or champagne (kir royale) and cassis (blackcurrant liqueur).

Pastis is a sweet anise-based (licorice-flavored) spirit that is more popular in the South, but is also available everywhere in Paris. Served with a small pitcher of water that is used to dilute the drink.

Bars

Clubs

Sleep - Paris Tourism

Generally one should be aware that Paris hotels, almost without regard to category or price, observe high and low seasons. These differ slightly from one hotel to another, but usually the high season roughly corresponds to late spring and summer, and possibly a couple of weeks around the Christmas season.

Budget

There are still lots of bargains in Paris. If you have time it might be worthwhile to scour the city in search of a nice undiscovered two star. You should be aware that the quality of hotels varies widely, and is only vaguely connected with the star system, which only guarantees that certain services exist and does not exactly reflect quality.

It's probably wise to ask to see a room if you are considering a night in an unknown two star, or maybe even three. Once you enter the four and five star level this is probably not necessary.

Be aware that being listed in a guide or website will eventually make it a bit harder to get a room. That means that you will probably need to book ahead for anything you read about here, especially in the high season. However, if they don't have a room they sometimes know another place close by that does have a room available.

When with two it can be a much better deal to find a hotel room than to get 2 hostel beds. More privacy for less money.

Sometimes you may find that you can't book ahead. In that case after a few calls you may find that all of the cute, charming places recommended by this and other guides are full. You may still have the option of shopping around on foot as we've mentioned above, but if you'd rather sacrifice charm for convenience there is the chain hotel option. The Ibis chain in particular serves the budget-to-mid price niche.

For all those who stay for three months or more renting a furnished apartment is an excellent option. Unlike in a hotel your are at home. Furnished apartments differ considerably in quality, - thus it is important to choose well. Furnished apartments are offered all around the city, but obviously it is interesting to be in the center, e.g. on the beautiful "rive gauche", - just south of the river Seine. Interesting offers can be found here: http://www.khs.fr/

Mid-range

Splurge

The Hotel Westminster, near Opera, often has weekend offers. It has a restaurant, 'Le Celedon' on the grond floor which offers a very good value weekend set meal (for a one star michelin that is).

Stay safe - Paris Tourism

In general Paris is a safe city.

There are some areas, like Barbès (18th), where it's better not to hang around alone at night, but they are easily recognizable by their raunchiness. Also some parts of the banlieue are better to avoid.

The metro is relatively safe, but again, pickpockets do work there.

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