Transportation around Paris

www.parisbytrain.com is a very useful site for this type of query.

The easiest answer is a carte orange. You can buy one for a week (I think the week starts on Monday, so you'd have to buy individual tickets for your first day) and it allows unlimited entry into the metro and bus system, but you'll have to buy tickets to get to Giverny or other sites outside of Paris. However, to really determine if the pass is worth it (as opposed to buying a carnet, which includes 10 tickets, or individual metro tickets) you need to try and figure out if you'll really use it that much. You say you like to walk and I often regret not walking more when I'm in Paris. The Metro is just so easy! Figure out your daily schedule and factor in where you are staying. Do you need public transportation that day? If I remember correctly (it's been 5 years since I've been to Paris), if you're going to ride 2 or more times per day (in a full week) on average, the carte orange is a great deal.

Becca is right ,, but the Carte Orange no longer exists,, its been renamed a Navigo Decouvert . It requires you to bring a small( smaller then passport size) photo. You pay a 5 euro fee for the card,, then you load it.. for one week its about 17:50 I think,, you can keep and reload the card again and again( without paying the 5 euro fee again) . I also wonder if you need it,, it does run monday-sunday,, so as noted, you will have to pay for sundays transport seperately . To go to Giverny buy a seperate ticket.

Thanks for the correction, Pat! I can see it's been too long since I've been to Paris, it's obviously time to go back! :-)

I used a color copier to shrink my passport photo onto regular copy paper, and they were fine with that. I thought the Decouverte Navigo was worth it. I bought it at the airport.

The passe Navigo Decouverte is the card onto which you load a Navigo Semaine (good for Monday-Sunday). The card is good for ten years. A zone 1-2 Navigo Semaine costs €19.15. A ten-ticket carnet costs €12.70. Each ticket is good anywhere the metro goes (some lines end in zone 3) and on the RER in zone 1. Each ticket allows unlimited transfers until you exit the system. Each ticket allows you to transfer from bus to bus (but not from bus to metro) up to 90 minutes after boarding the first bus. A ticket is also good on the Montmartre funiculaire. The fare on a regional train from Gare Saint-Lazare to Vernon (the station closest to Giverny) is €13.30 each way. It's a one-hour ride.

Thank you to all you kind people who have given us some helpful information regarding our travel around Paris. Now the work begins to determine how much we will plan to rely on the metro/buses so we can decide whether or not to purchase the Navigo Decouverte pass. Very exciting to see how many people are out on Rick's site to support fellow traveling enthusiasts. As Rick always says, "Keep on Traveling!"

Don't overwork this issue. My wife and I were in Paris for 9 days in early December (arrived on Saturday and left Sunday) and we seemed to always be getting on the metro or a bus to somewhere. Between the two of us, we went through 30 tickets. That's 37.5 euro so you probably won't have much benefit from buying a pass. You'll have the fee to get it, the cost for the week and the hassle to get it made. You'll also need to buy individual tickets for the day not covered by the pass. You can buy the carnet at any Tabac. You'll almost certainly find the 6 day Paris Museum Pass an excellent deal. Don't miss Versailles.

Now I am a little confused. Can you still in 2012 purchase a "carnet?" And will those 10 or 12 tickets you get when you buy a carnet get you the opportunity to travel amongst all those arrondissements around Paris?

Sylvia, Yes you can still purchase a carnet which is just 10 individual tickets at a discounted price. Go back and read the post from Tim. He describes how the tickets work.

The carnet will work within the "circle road" around Paris. It won't get you to/from the CDG airport, Versailles or any of the potential day trips outside Paris. Be sure to discard your used tickets after you leave the bus or metro so you won't get confused at try to reuse them. Keep your used tickets while in the metro in case an inspector wants to see your ticket. We never were approached by one but I've heard that they do exist.

These are all good responses with good information about metro and bus travel in Paris, but someone (I guess that would be me) needs to make the case for walking as much as possible while in Paris. Paris is very walkable and you miss so much if you get into using the metro constantly - you end up seeing Paris a la gopher - where you're underground most of the time and just pop up to look left and right and then return underground! When I'm in Paris I plan my days so that I can walk as much as possible to the things I want to see - heck - I would recommend walking even if you have no destination! My first day in Paris a few months ago I walked seven hours and never used the metro once - started at the Centre Pompidou and wandered around until I finally rested in a cafe near the Sorbonne. And I never felt tired. Actually, I think I stopped in three different cafes that day to collect myself and to assess where I'd been and where I was headed. It was a wonderful day.

I totally agree with Gwen. My favorite thing to do in Paris is just walk. You see and experience so much more by walking as much as possible. I love sitting in cafes to rest and people watch and then walking more.

We have a tendency to walk to what we want to see and when we finish and are tired, we bus back. Paris is a very walkable city. The sights, smells, (most are good), architecture, etc. cannot be done from a bus or a metro. My wife loves to stop in little boutiques to shop and we enjoy stoping at chese shops, pastry shops, wine shops, bakeries, etc. to buy food to cook when we get back to our apartment.