How do I get transport information in and around Paris.
 

Our daughter (age 20)will be arriving in Paris at about 10pm on April 7th to meet us and we will only be arriving that morning on our first ever Paris visit. She is coming in to Beauvais Airport and the bus from there to Paris will drop her at Port Maillot, Ave de Grande Armee 75017. She wants to use the cheapest safe option to get to our hotel ...Hotel du Champ de Mars in Rue du Champ de Mars 75007. Does anyone know bus routes or metro details to do this? Is the metreo safe for her at night? Is ther somewhere we can email for this sort of info?
Thanks in advance for any help!
Rosie:)

You can get some Metro and RER information here:

www.ratp.com

There is an English version

A bus will probably be the easiest for her to negotiate. The N° 82 goes directly from Porte Maillot to École Militaire stop, which is just around the corner from that hotel. Here is a map of the bus route:

http://www.ratp.info/orienter/f_plan...&nompdf=82

If you're concerned for her safety, why don't you go meet the airport shuttle?

Personally, I wouldn't try to learn the metro system with luggage that late of an evening. A taxi won't cost more than 10-15Euro, will be direct and much less hassle. Cheapest is not always best.
If she insists, then she'll need to buy her tickets at the 'billet' window, and board metro Line 1, direction Chateau de Vincennes. She'll need to get off and transfer (still underground) at Concorde to Line 8 direction Balard and get off at Ecole Militaire. A street map will help from that point but it's maybe 1 street off.
Note that Line 1 is pickpocket country b/c it cuts right thru Paris following the Seine and is heavily used by tourists.

Note also that 'pickpocket country' just means that it is the main line through the richest part of Paris -- not that there is anything sleazy about it.

OK,

From Pt Maillot, she can take the Metro to Concorde, then switch and go to Ecole MIlitaire stop. Two blocks to your street. Travel time 13 minutes.

Here's a useful web page in english, I did a from / to search and got the above.

http://www.ratp.info/informer/anglais/index.php

Since theses are main lines serving tourist destinations, I would not be overly worreid at night.

When she gets to Pt Maillot, she can buy a carnet of tickets, which is just 10 individual tickets, for 10,90 euros.
She will only need one ticket. From the Pt Maillot Metro station, she takes line 1 (blue line) in the direction of Vincennes (the metro directions are indicated by their two end points, she wants to go in the V. direction). When she gets to Concorde, she wants to walk over to the line 8 metro, and in this case she will be going in the Balard direction. Exit at Ecole Militaire, walk up avenue Bosquet, rue Champ de Mars is 3 streets up.

If she takes the bus, she'll want to board at the stop that says "Direction Luxembourg." In the map below, that stop is on the west side of Avenue Malakoff, at the bottom (zoom out to see the name):

http://www.ratp.info/Proxi/proxi.php...Center=2431079

At École Militaire, the stop is the one right next to the M in the circle.

http://www.ratp.info/Proxi/proxi.php...Center=2428440

How much LUGGAGE will she have?????

Thankyou so much to all of you ! Robespierre your info was amazing!
We will probably be exhausted having flown in from Australia that morning so having a few options is great. We won't have seen her for 6 months since she moved to Itsaly on a working visa so I think the anticipation will be keeping us going!
Thanks again to you all.
Rosie :D

The bus isn't an option: last bus leaves Neuilly at 9pm, and there isn't a night bus following that route.

I'd assume she won't be the only passenger arriving at Porte Maillot and needing to take the Metro from there. There may well be steps to negotiate, so luggage could be an issue either there or changing at Concorde, and certainly on exiting. But if she sticks by other people getting off the bus and uses a bit of common sense, safety isn't likely to be a problem.

Starting last week, another bunch of bus lines in Paris had their service extended to half past midnight. I haven't checked which ones, but more than 60% of the Paris bus lines now operate much later than before.

Thanks...I think her Ryanair flight from Rome gets in to Beauvais around 9pm so by saying 10pm I was allowing for the bus trip to Paris...times are only approximate at this stage.
Rosie:)

If you want to know if a specific bus is running, run the numbers through the ratp.fr itinerary planner. If it comes up, the bus is running at the specified hour. If not, it will propose an alternate.

At any magazine kiosk your daughter or you can buy the Michelin atlas guide for Paris, which has maps for busses, metro, RER (fast metro), streets, and other things, and complete lists with addresses for museums, public buildings, churches, and much else. It is as useful as the AZ London atlas-guide.

Ben Hsines, London
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