Best Paris Bus Guide?
 

We were in Paris recently and the long walks up and down to the Metro were a bit tough on my husband. We would have taken the bus more often, but our little bus/metro map was somewhat vague when it came to bus routes. Any suggestions on the best map as it pertains to the bus?

Annieladd! I know your pain! In over 20 trips to Paris I have never been able to figure out what bus to take. Someone suggested The Paris Mapguide, which I duly bought, before our trip in November..but I still was lost. My only consolation is , when I am tired and a bus comes by, I get on it , and when the stop looks interesting I get off and explore. I've had it out the last few days studying it for our Feb. trip , but I am still condused,


If it's any consolation, I can't figure out the busses in London either!

Paris buses are the best! You can get all the info you need on www.ratp.com

The #69 is a great low-cost alterntive to the expensive hop-on/hop-off buses, as it goes by many of the major sites.

Next time you are in Paris, go to a newspaper kiosk and look for the small dark blue booklets, ie. Paris Pratique, Paris par Arrondissement, or some such title. I bought one that fits in my jeans pocket, that has a separate map in the front for metro, RER and bus plans. I'm not sure, but there may even be one that specifically features the bus routes.

The other thing that you can do ahead of time, once you know where you are staying, is to use the bus maps on the www.ratp.fr site, where you can print a particular route, ie. #68 goes past my hotel and the route map will show all the stops.

Also, there should be a route map posted at most bus stops, although I haven't used the bus enough to know how often this is true or how useful they are for figuring out where to change if it will take more than one route to get where you want to go.

There are extremely detailed and useful bus maps at

<b>http://www.ratp.info/orienter/tous_plans_pdf.php</b>

The one called <u>Bus Paris (avec rues)</u> shows every street with the bus routes overlaid.

Thanks for asking the question, annie. Fellow Fodorite and friend Marcy and I are going to Paris next week and one of the top things on our &quot;to do&quot; list is to figure out the Paris bus system! We've gotten some good info from this post.

Get a copy of &quot;le Bus&quot; by L'Indidspensible, an inexpensive booklet available at bookstores and tourist shops in Paris. I carry the pocket version; there are larger ones.

Every bus stop has a name. The guide lists all the stops along each route, and also displays the route [including transfer points] overlaid on maps of the city. Stops can be quite far apart, and by folowing along you can see where to get off.

For places served by many lines [Opera is a prime example] it can be very difficult to find the correct stop. On the site below, &quot;plans du quartiers&quot; are listed by metro station, and print out on standard paper. These show the bus stops and also their direction.

http://www.ratp.fr/ParisVisite/Eng/P...arters_gif.htm

I linked this thread to the Paris Superthread, which is

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34519236

Here is self guided city tour using 3 bus lines. A copy of “le Bus” and maps for Bastille and Opera per my last post are advised. For ease of explanation we are starting at the Opera Metro.

Walk down the Ave. de l’Opera and left on rue du Quatre Septembre [second street] and board the 29 bus [direction Gare du Nord]. You will pass the Bourse, Place des Victoires, Centre Pompidou...into the Marais...passing Musees Cognacq Jay &amp; Carnavalet and Place des Vosges. Get off at Bastille and then board the 69 bus [direction Champ de Mars].

If you prefer to get off at the Place des Vosges and walk through [maybe stopping for a coffee at one of the cafes], proceed through the south exit and down the street to the corner and left [rue Saint Antoine] a few steps to the 69 bus stop.

Soon you’ll be on the rue de Rivoli, passing the Hotel de Ville, Samartaine, and close to the Palais Royale before going left through the Louvre complex [between the pyramid and the Arc du Carrousel] and crossing on the Pont Royale. Now it’s past the Musee d’Orsay, through the Place des Invalides, past Rue Cler and into the Champ de Mars.

At the end of the line, board the 42 bus [same stop]. If you prefer to walk to the Eiffel Tower, you can board the 42 further down [and to the right].

Now it’s across the Pont de Alma up Ave Montaigne to the Champs-Elysses and down past the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais and through the Place de la Concorde. Then up Rue Royale to the Madeleine and to Opera.

For a simplified bus map with only sights on it (<i>e.g.</i> for RonZ's tour), go to

<b>http://www.ratp.info/orienter/tous_plans_pdf.php</b>

and click on <u>Bus touristique</u>. And don't get on l'Open Tour buses unless you want to pay &euro;24 for the experience.

Thanks for the links, Robespierre. Those are excellent maps. Do you know if the maps are available to order anywhere? My cruddy computer won't let me print them out.

Maybe you could save the map file(s) to a cd/disk, then take it to Kinko's to print out..? Or to your office or to a friend's..?

or copy/paste the map image to a document (ie. Excel), resize or crop as you like, then print?

I haven't investigated printing them, because they're so handy on my PDA. But they are .pdf files, so getting hard copy shouldn't be a problem.

If there's a Paris resident lurking, perhaps they can tell us if RATP makes them available. I'm pretty sure the map of tourist sights is.

Thanks, Travelnut.

Saving it to disk and taking it to Kinko's is probably the best idea because then I could print it out in color.

Things that should be obvious are often not when one is going on 5 hours of sleep. I'm glad today is my Friday this week. Have a Happy New Year!

HI
my brand new non-cruddy computer won't let me print them out either, I can't even see them without getting messages about downloads etc--I say 'yes' to everything, but nothing happens

The RATP maps are in Portable Document Format (.pdf files), so you need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and/or print them.

<b>http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html</b>

just idly wondering, as I mentioned on another thread, am I not the only person who refers to the transit system as
'rat pee'?

Gee, thanks, Elaine - I had never 'verbalized' it as rat-p, but <i>now</i> I will never be able <i>not</i> to!

Here is the URL for the &quot;plans du quartiers&quot; I posted above, but in pdf. These are the ones you see in the metro and are different and better than the ones on the main ratp site.

For anyone wishing to use buses, I would suggest looking up the one for the metro closest to the hotel or apartment to see what is available and where exactly the stops are.

http://www.ratp.info/orienter/plan_telech_quartiers.php