Hot answers tagged paris
37
As a French native, I discovered this practice in North America. I never asked for a doggy bag in France, nor have I seen someone do it. So it is likely restaurants don't even have boxes.
You can obviously take out food from fast-food restaurants but for regular restaurants I don't think it is correct behaviour. I usually finish my dishes, I only order what ...
23
I think the best write-up I've seen on this is at Corporatetravelsafety.com:
They begin the Paris String Scam by engaging you in innocent
conversation and will usually say that they want to show you a magic
trick. Before you know it, a "string man" has grabbed your wrist or
one or two fingers and encircled it with a homemade bracelet of
colored ...
19
The cheapest, but especially most efficient way of transport to get around Paris is the Velib. You pay a fee of 1,70 EUR for a dayticket or 8 Eur for a week ticket. During the validity of this ticket you are entitled to use any bicycle from the velib network.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
The catch to really travel cheap is to change bikes every 30 minutes. ...
17
Yes, there is!
On the first Sunday of every month, almost all the main museums and art galleries are open for free.
The only slight downside is that loads of people take advantage of this, so the queues can be quite long (it took 25 minutes to get into le Musée d'Orsay today mid afternoon as a guide), and they can be very busy inside. See this question on ...
17
The metro is only €1,70 per ride, and if you buy a carnet of 10 the price is €13.30 for all 10.
Probably your best bet. I hate cycling because of the issues with locking it up, worrying about theft, and if you're in the upper arrondissements going uphill on cobblestone sounds like a miserable experience I would rather spare myself from.
The city is ...
14
It's certainly possible to do a day-trip from Paris to London. Eurostar takes a little over 2 hours each way from Paris (Gare du Nord) to London (St Pancras) and back. In both directions you clear immigration (both exit and entry!) before boarding the train, which adds a little to the total time.
However, if you've never been to Paris before, I'm really ...
12
I went several times to this park and I never had to deal with that kind of people (I am French). They certainly target tourists so I would recommend the usual stuff I apply to myself not to be bothered in such a case.
Walk confidently, a bit fast. You know where you are going.
Do not look around or stroll in front of them. Look in front of you.
If they ...
11
There are some good opportunities, for example:
Fontainebleau (outer suburbs to the south-east, about 45 minutes by train from Gare de Lyon + 30 minutes of bus from Gare de Fontainebleau-Avon to the palace)
Vincennes (inner suburbs to the east, terminal of metro line Ⓜ①)
Chantilly (northern suburbs, about 1 hour: take a train from gare du Nord (or the ...
11
Paris Visite is a more expensive tourist thing, with a discount voucher book for museums, etc...
I would suggest you to get what the locals use when they need a day of unlimited travel.
It is called the Mobilis. Costs less than the Paris Visite and much less advertised; its counterpart is that you cannot use it on Orlyval and the CDG airport stations.
Also, ...
11
If your travel company is comfortable with cycling, Velib is the least stressful form of transportation in Paris. You pay a daily fee, which is very low, and then you can take a velib bicycle to cycle around. The first 30 minutes of each trip are always free of charge. This actually means that you can ride for free as long as you change bicycles every 30 ...
11
Regarding the eiffel tower:
Image rights / the Eiffel Tower brand
By day, the sun light and the eiffel tower are in public domain, you can take it in picture and publish / try to sell the pictures as you want.
By night, the eiffel tower artistic lighting is under copyright if it's the main subject of the picture.
I think if it's for your little blog ...
10
Don't even try it, it may send an already obnoxious Parisien waiter over the edge. He'll likely pretend to not understand what you're saying.
European portion sizes tend to be manageable for most normal people unless you go to an American themed 'restaurant' that engages in the likes of rib eating competitions.
10
Take the Metro.
Better than a carnet if you plan to ride often, I suggest you consider unlimited-ride passes. These give a sense of freedom, "need a ride? let's go!". You an use the underground network as well as buses and light rail.
Available short-term passes that are:
Paris Visite : The tourist thing. Rather expensive, with a booklet of vouchers for ...
10
The fastest route is the Thalys train that takes 1:22 hours and is a non stop train. If you compare that to the car, you need more than 3 hours according to Google. Consequently, buses can't be any faster than cars. Another option would be flying, but a flight takes around 1 hours, without including the time for getting to the airport, security check, ...
10
Thalys is definitely the fastest way of getting from Brussels to Paris. You can buy tickets directly at the Thalys website. You can also buy them at the Belgian (SNCB) or French (SNCF) railway companies. The prices are in principle identical.
The trip by bus takes around 5 hours, to be compared to the 1h20 of the train trip. Apart from Eurolines you can use ...
9
On Hafas sites (I used the Belgian one), I found 10h41 with one change at Torino:
EuroStar Italia - ES 9630: Roma Termini (13h00) to Torino Porta Susa (16h52)
TGV - TGV 9248: Torino Porta Susa (17h35) to Paris Austerlitz, (23h51)
I got a quote on voyages-sncf.com, the french railways company: 208€ in 2nd class and 262€ in first class. For such a trip, ...
9
Since the trip on the Eurostar to London from Paris is 2:22 and back is slightly longer at 2:27 it is certainly feasible to make a day trip to Paris from London. The earliest train on August 1, for example is at 07:13, arriving at 08:40; and the last return trip from London to Paris leaves at 20:55, getting to Paris at 00:17.
Tickets on the Eurostar aren't ...
9
Cheap + Efficient = Walk!
Paris "intra muros", i.e. the area inside the ring road (boulevard périphérique, postal codes starting with 75) is relatively small. It has a surface of 105 square kilometers. On the North-South axis the largest distance is 10 kilometers and on the East-West 12 kilometers. These distances are rough estimates but give you a good ...
8
You can get by. Millions of Japanese do it every year. For an English speaker, French is one of the most similar. It is amazing how much communication can be accomplished without a common spoken language. For an English speaker, though, French is loaded with cognates. Out of respect and courtesy, do not assume that the French speak English. This is a good ...
8
My opinion is that a Paris Visite pass is hardly worth the money.
If that's true in your case is difficult to answer. Basically, you have to use the public transport quite heavily. The price of single metro ticket is 1.70 EUR and if you buy tickets by a batch of 10 ("carnet"), the price goes down to 1.33 EUR per ticket. With that information in mind, take ...
8
The site explains:
If all the times are taken, the following message will be displayed: "no tickets available for the date requested". Choose another day (or purchase your ticket for immediate entry at the monument ticket counters).
That says to me that if you can't buy online, you can still go up, but you'll have to wait in a (possibly long) line.
...
8
How to possibly avoid waiting at the Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower consists of several stages. The lower part can be done either by stairs or by elevator. The higher part can be done either way. There's usually a big queue for the elevator at the ground floor, but not much of a queue for the stairs.
When I climbed the Eiffel Tower, I didn't know that, ...
8
From someone from abroad, they are located at the same place: Paris. But one is at the north east of Paris (Cité des sciences) whereas the other is near the Champs-Élysées (Palais de la découverte).
I have visited both and I am fond of the Palais de la découverte. I feel there is much more humanity in the way science is displayed. This lies perhaps in how ...
7
Well it's POSSIBLE. The train ride is 2.5 hours, roughly, plus time in customs/waiting. So yeah, you could do it.
However, should you? No. If you only have three days, don't spend what's realistically 8 hours once you include waiting and travel time, unless you're a real train fan and want to try out the Eurostar.
IF however, you do, then you'll arrive ...
7
You can book this train on my website, loco2.com:
http://loco2.com/journey/rome-paris-1q0w3dk
Unfortunately we can currently only ship this ticket to a UK address.
If you cannot book elsewhere, I would recommend trying http://raileurope-world.com as they ship globally.
7
First it seems the name of the piece of art is exactly "Crocodilus Fibonacci".
The museum has a page describing the piece of art. It belongs to the museum, so it might still be on display on the permanent collection floors. But I could not find any reference on the page saying it is actually the case.
Pictures on Flickr of this crocodile date from 2003 to ...
7
Both Paris Pass AND City Passport include the Paris Visite card. It's not an option.
So the actual comparison is only between Paris Pass and City Passport.
The biggest difference is that Paris Pass includes everything they advertise, you only chose the age of the person and the days.
City Passport has different benefits depending on the days. For ...
7
Indeed at first it sounds like they are the same, but they are actually more complementary.
Checking the website, we can learn (it's in French though) that the Palais de la Découverte is more the science museum, kids-oriented with experiments to figure basic physics phenomena, so it is probably what you are looking for.
On the other hand, La Cité des ...
6
Be sure to include in your plans the "Batobus" - say it out loud and it's like Bateau [boat] bus. It's a hop-on-hop-off boat up and down the Seine that will get you to the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame etc, as well as providing nice views along the river. We used this on our Paris trip and no other public transport was necessary - a cab from the Gare ...
6
In Paris always say no to solicitors. I haven't had this one happen to me, but I've had the calling card scam done on me. My answer is always say no.
I don't suggest no merci. Yes, its in French, but you can pick the English accent miles away.
I always walk through them. If they grab you or try to stop me, I say 'eh ohhh'. You have to say it with a ...
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