Paris - Is the Carte Orange now dead? What's now best?

The Carte Orange has been replaced by the rechargeable passe Navigo Decouverte plastic card. It costs €5.00 and is good for ten years. Like the Carte Orange, it requires a small photo. Prune away! A Navigo Semaine, which you will load on the card, has the same conditions as the Carte Orange. It's good for Monday-Sunday, not any 7-day period. A zone 1-2 Navigo Semaine costs €19.15. I suggest that you buy individual tickets to get from Orly to your hotel and to Versailles and back. Buy a carnet (€12.70) for your rides within central Paris on Saturday and Sunday.

You can make a reduced color copy of your passport photo and cut it down to size. Then, carefully save your new Navigo pass until your next trip to Paris, when I'm sure it will have changed to something different. You're just gonna have to go more often!

Thanks, Tim & Karen, The suggestion of a (reduced) photocopy is clever we'll have to decide whether to go that route (and save the Orange cards as a souvenir) or prune 'em. Indeed, since the Orange Card was supposed to have some longevity I'm suspicious about the 10-year life. But, yes, if we do visit Paris more often then perhaps we'll have a chance to use them more than once. ;-} (I'm such a travel packrat ... still carrying our Oyster Cards for some future London visit.) One thing in our researching this that remains a puzzle some sites talk about "loading" the old Orange cards onto the new Navigo card. What is that about? There's nothing to "load" from the old card ... or is there?? (That's what makes me pause before I take scissors to the old Orange cards...)

Here's a quote from the Transilien site: The passe Navigo Découverte. This is the pass onto which you load your Navigo Semaine. The passe Navigo Découverte comprises: - a personal travel card, - a smart card, - a holder. Before using it, you should: - write your surname and first name on the card, - stick an identity photo in the space indicated.
The card and the pass must be used together. They are strictly personal and cannot be used by any other person. The passe Navigo Découverte lasts 10 years. You can reload it as many times as you like. It is on sale at all our ticket offices and costs €5.

So, do I understand this correctly? One needs to buy the plastic card for five euros, then load it for €12.50 per week (Monday/Sunday). So two weeks would be €30. Is this correct? Does anyone know where the locations to purchase the card are? At Metro stations? Thanks.

Kay, You have understood the process correctly, but you have the wrong price for a zone 1-2 Navigo Semaine. It's €19.15, not €12.50. You can buy the passe Navigo Decouverte and the Navigo Semaine at staffed Metro and RER stations.