PHayden

If I use Air France to get from USA to South Africa I would have almost a 15 hour layover in Paris. Landing at 8:30 am and leaving at 11pm. What could I do during that time? Would there be somewhere at the airport we could store bags? What time would I need to be back at the airport?

Andrew

You could take a RER train from CDG to Paris Nord station and, I'm fairly sure, store your bags there for the day. (Lockers I think.) Then you could take the Metro and buses around Paris for the day, come back to Nord a few hours before your flight, and do the reverse.

StCirq

There is only one luggage consigne that I know of at the airport, in Terminal 2 at the SNCF station. It's marked with a bright blue circular sign that says Bagages du Monde. There may be others that I just don't know about.

You'll need to be back at the airport 3 hours before your flight, so by 8 pm (maybe a bit earlier if you need to retrieve your bags and get to another terminal). That gives you plenty of time to get into Paris, see a few landmarks, have a nice lunch, and get back out to the airport.

lauren_s_kahn

I assume the person's bags would be checked through. Another "solution" is to get a hotel room and go to sleep, but, if the person has not been to Paris then I would assume he would want to do a bit of sightseeing if only for a few hours.

I have a similar layover problem in Ireland coming home from my current Toulouse, Bordeaux, Salamanca, Madrid trip. Since my layover is at night, I booked a hotel.

PHayden

Thank you everyone for your replies. We have never been to Paris so it would be nice to see something with this long a layover. Our flight to Paris is at night so I'm hoping we sleep some during the flight and our flight to Johannesburg is also at night. With a whole day in Paris, having a half day to explore with lunch at a nice cafe and then heading back to the airport in early afternoon sounds good. We can then have a meal at airport before we board.