I'm looking at a map of the Metro I downloaded. I want to get from the Gare du Nord to Ecole Militaire, Rue Cler area. We will be traveling late May around 8pm.
Questions:
1) How are the subways at that time of night?
2) How easy is it to buy 10 Carnets from a machine? Do you use Euros or CC.
3) What lines do we take to get from Gare du Nord to Ecole Militaire, what is the best station to transfer. I'm confused looking at the Map.
Anyone out there with experience on this?
Thanks.
In terms of routing,
head over to the offical Paris Metro site (www.ratp.fr), from there you can enter any two stations or street addresses, and it will give you the exact lines/transfers and walking directions to your final destination.
1) The rush hour is long over by then, lots of empty seats. All trains run until 11:30 p.m. Upon your arrival at Paris Gare du Nord follow the signs to Metro Line 4.
2) Buy your Carnet from the agent at the Line 4 Metro ticket window at the Gare du Nord station. E or CC are both accepted.
3) Take Line 4 (Direction Porte D'Orleans) to station Strasbourg-Saint-Denis.
Switch to Line 8 (Direction Balard) to Ecole Militaire.
The rush hour is over but it is still early in the evening. The Metro is safe, but you do need to get used to panhandling, etc. It's easiest to buy carnets from a ticket window with cash but there are machines that accept both cash and credit cards. They just don't always work. Gare du Nord should have a staffed ticket window that time of night.
jackie,
There are several ways to get to the Ecole Militaire Metro station and the Rue Cler area, but the route suggested by Bill is exactly the one I would use (and will be using, also in late May).
The ticket machines may or may not work with North American (magnetic stripe) credit cards? I believe the machines for RER tickets at Paris CDG will only work with the newer "chip cards". Best to have a few Euros on hand as well. As someone else mentioned, Gare du Nord is a major station, so the ticket windows should be staffed.
Happy travels!
Jackie, Don't be intimidated by the metro. It couldn't be easier. When you look at the map, look for your stop. Take note of the stop at the END of that line, and go in that direction. How long are you going to be there? If you will be there from a Monday - Sunday, you might want to buy a pass for the week. With the pass, it is very easy to go where every you want without worrying about tickets. Have a fantastic time. You will love Paris.
One more thing that no one has mentioned. Be sure to hold onto that ticket that you pass through the machine when you enter the metro. Sometimes there will be agents at the end checking those tickets with a little hand held device. If you don't have your used ticket, you get fined on the spot. Locals will tell you not to worry about that, but we have seen it several times and had it happen to us once. We had our tickets, by the way.
The metro is a cinch. There are huge maps on the wall at every station. The lines are named according to the last station on the route.
Thomas - you are right about them checking the tickets. It happened to us in January. We had the Navigo pass (?) for the week, and you are supposed to have your picture on it. When we bought the passes the guy said not to worry about it. We got stopped after using them for almost the whole week. They wrote something on the passes (I think to indicate we were warned) and told us to put our pictures on them. On the RER train you will need your ticket to exit the station.
