On our way to South Africa next month we will have a 10 hour layover at CDG. I will be with someone who's never been to Paris and I was wondering what would be the best to see the city in a limited amount of time? Should we take a train or a taxi into the city? In what order should we visit the main sights? We looked into hiring a private driver for a few hours but it's very expensive. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

One quick and convenient tour of Paris would be to take the Roissybus from CdG to the Opera.

To understandn the itinerary below, you need a good map of Paris or you can follow it on Google maps.

From the Opera you can
- walk down bld des Capucines to Madeleine,
- then down rue Royale to place de la Concorde.
You can have a glimpse of the Champs Elysées on one side, and the Louvre on the other.
From Concorde you can take a short metro ride (line N°12 direction Mairie D'Issy) to rue du Bac.
Then walk
- eastward on bdl St Germain to St Germain des Près,
- then northward on rue Bonaparte to the river Seine.
Cross the river to Palais Royal and check out the sumptuous garden (tricky to find the entrance).
Walk northward on avenue de l'Opéra toward l'Opéra Garnier; you can't miss the latter.
Somewhere along the way, stop in a café that everyone else seems to love and have a croque monsieur and a coup de rouge.
I imagine you have about safely 5 hours in Paris. It may be time to take the Roissybus back to the airport...
With this itinerary, you have an easy bus into town and out of town.
You will have covered the Opera district, Madeleine, Concorde, St Germain, the river, Palais Royal. Mostly walking, very easy walking, most of the time on large boulevards, theoretically hard to get lost.

Be aware that any luggage you are carrying on to the plane will have to come in to Paris with you. I don't believe there is any way you can check it at the airport.

If anyone knows a way to deal with luggage in a case like this, I'd love to find out about it!

- Roz

I'm flying on Air France from Montreal to Paris and then from Paris to Johannesburg. I called them and they said we could check our luggage in Montreal all the way through to Johannesburg... Hope that's true!

quote:

they said we could check our luggage in Montreal all the way through to Johannesburg

Yes, you should be fine for checked luggage. We usually have carry-on bags as well that we wouldn't want to lug around a city.

- Roz

We'll both have a small backpack with us. Hopefully we don't get sick of carrying them around for a few hours. I guess it would be the cost to pay to see Paris for a few hours.

With only 10 hours, perhaps less if you haven't included the time needed to get back to the airport and through check in for your next flight, you might want to consider the hop on/off bus. You would get a good overview of Paris and, depending on the time of day you are there, a hop off the bus for lunch at one of the great cafe's all over the city. I second the idea of a croque monsieur!

You could get off and on wherever you wanted to spend a bit more time, like the Eiffel Tower or somewhere. The HOHO will take you by everything wonderful in Paris, Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, Pantheon, through the Latin Quarter etc. etc.

They will definitely want to go back after even a few hour sampling!

Linda

The HOHO bus - good idea - starts in rue Auber which is where Roissybus lets out.