Hi, We're thinking of staying in an apartment on Ile St Louis for our first trip to Paris at the end of July. Is the metro a very far walk? I can't really tell from looking at the maps how do-able it would be, or even how big this island is! Thanks

If you use www.mappy.com and indicate a pedestrian journey, it will tell you the walking distance between 2 points.

Escllent location. There are several M locations, depending on which line you want.

Pont Marie is across one bridge to the Right Bank....5 minutes. Sully Morland alos Right Bank is across another bridge from the island, about 5 minutes.

Cite is on Ile de la Cite, about a 10 min walk. St Michel is on Left Bank, across one bridge and is RER (to CDG) and M station, about a 10-15 min walk.

Bus service is <i>very</i> good at Ile de la Cite. If you search for &quot;Paris Bus&quot; etc. you will find several good threads. Poster Robespierre's theads come to mind.

The bus system is a piece of cake (once you get past that initially-intimidating map!).

The above post relates to both islands, St. Louis as well as de la Cite.

We stayed in an apartment on the Ile last year...loved the walk to St Paul metro on the right bank...can see the largest remaining portion of the medieval Paris wall on the way (near Rue Charlemagne). The left bank is convenient too...as was stated...all 5 or 10 minute walks.

Thanks so much for all your replies. I feel much better about our choices now!

we ended up deciding on an apartment on Isle St Louis for our first trip to Paris next year based in large part based on the fact it was (based on viamichelin.com) 5mins walk to a choice of metros, and had a bus to the Eiffel tower 30 seconds away.

I agree that the bus is more convenient to use than the metro, which is also not far. Be sure to have a picnic on the river banks on Ile St Louis and watch the sunset. It was my most romantic moment away from the crowd.

Note: We usually try to avoid Cite metro if at all possible...and we'd never go there at night.

Now, keep in mind, this is coming from someone who's always avoided it, so I'm not the best person to address conditions there. I've heard it was unsafe and the one time we used I was very uncomfortable.

I hope others will weigh in and tell me I'm wrong...avoiding Cite can be difficult at times.

We used the Cite quite a bit...early in the am and through the day. I never noticed anything &quot;creepy&quot; It is in a safe area...people around even in the evening. It is also very beautiful to photograph...green light and modern.

Jeanne,

Do you mean the Ile de la Cite metro? I didn't realize it was unsafe - we usually used Pont Marie metro while staying on Ile St. Louis, but I never thought to venture over to the next Island...is it really that bad?

no, it isn't that bad. it's very very deep however, and you sure want the elevator to be working.
it comes up next to where the market stalls are located... maybe it feels a bit 'deserted' at night?

Cit&eacute; unsafe? I have never heard that in all of the years I've lived in Paris, particularly since it is directly below the Pr&eacute;fecture de Police and 90% of the non tourists who use the station are policemen.

Here is how to run the bus system like a pro: fodors.com/forums/threadselect.jsp?tid=34987572

Ile the Saint Louis is not really tghat big. There are several metro stations around.

The closest ones are Pont Marie and Sully Morland. Both these are within a 5 minutes walk.

Within a 10 minutes walk, there are several stations more to choose from.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&amp;hl=n...;z=15&amp;om=1

Accommodation in Paris:
http://www.holiday-velvet.com/paris

jmday4: Just wanted to add that the walking distance between Ile de St Louis and the surrounding metro stations is shorter than what is appears on the map (especially Pont Marie) plus the Ile is so central to all the wonderful things for a first-timer that most of the time you'll want to walk everywhere anyway.

I've been on Ile de la Cite at night many times, and would not say that I ever felt unsafe. It is a crossing point for traffic going between Left and Right Bank, and there are lots of tourists, like me, who like lingering on the bridges over the Seine. That being said, I wouldn't call it a major restaurant destination (I did like Vieux Bistrot), so at night there would be less crowds compared to Ile St Louis and the St Michel area on the Left Bank. There alsways seem to be some police officers walking around.

This is driving me nuts...I have 2 posts I put up the morning. They show up on this posting page. But they don't show when I go back to the main thread.

Anyways, KEROUAC: Sorry...It's not Cite, it's Chatelet that we avoid! I don't like it even during the day.

No one has mentioned Maubert-Mutualite. It's an easy walk from Ile St. Louis: cross bridge to left bank, walk through Rue Maitre Albert, the metro is in Place Maubert. 10 minute walk at most and a good choice if you're headed toward the 6th or 7th. There are ATM's there as well as an open air market several days a week.

tombanks - that URL doesn't work because of the way Fodor's parses it.

It also overflows the margins, causing everyone's screen to stretch.

Both these problems can be avoided by running it through tinyurl.com, which will convert it to this: http://tinyurl.com/2bueyg

By the way - anyone needing maps of a specfic area should enter its name at Google, and hit &quot;Maps&quot;.
In this case, <b>ile st-louis paris</b> is enough information to produce this: http://tinyurl.com/29ufms