tcreath

Here I am leaving for Germany in 2 days and I am researching for our Paris trip in November! Anyways, this will be our first trip to Paris and we will, unfortunately, only be there for 3 nights. We have never really been interested in walking tours before, instead just strolling around and taking in the sights ourselves. However, since we will only be in Paris a short time and there seems to be so much to see, we are wondering if a walking tour may be a good way to orient ourselves and learn a little bit more about some of the areas. I know that there will probably be mixed opinions regarding the to do a walking tour/not do a walking tour, but I was just trying to consensus and determine if maybe its worth the price.

Thanks!
Tracy

Robespierre

Walking tours, by the nature of their narrow focus, can't cover much ground in a short time. Since you're only going to be there for 3 nights, you might miss a lot of interesting stuff if you walk a lot. Mind you, Paris is a great city for strolling - but only if you have a week or two for a leisurely pace.

A good way to get an overview of the city and its monuments is to take a hop-on/hop-off bus tour. A commercial one is at <b>http://www.paris-opentour.com/index_eng.htm
</b>, and a do-it-yourself version can be found at http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34568214

suec1

Well I would suggest you do at least one walking tour - not so much so see the entire city but to get some historical info and perspective. Check out www.paris-walks.com and chose one in an area that interests you. These are informative and relatively inexpensive walks, entertaining too. Sometimes there is repeat info - for example on the development of Paris or the Hausmann influence so you will get some general info about the whole city as well as particular insight into one of the areas. We have done about five of these over the years - we always enjoy them and see sights we might have missed on our own. You can't see all of Paris in a short time but this will make an area or two more intersting. Have a great time in Germany and in Paris! SueC1

Dejais

tcreath....We will only have two days in Paris at the end of this month. After a lot of research, we decided to try the Segway Tour which will take us past a lot of the best sites. We chose the nighttime tour so that the next day we can go back on foot and see what we liked best.

Website info http://www.parissegwaytours.com/

Dejais

Forgot to clarify....this is not a walking tour, but rather a motorized thing-a-ma-jiggy tour. You have to see it to believe it.

I found out about this from another Fodorite. She posted pics and said what fun they haad, so we decided to try it based on that.