We were thinking about going to Paris for the day. Any suggestions? We are unsure about this. How to get around Paris if we take the Eurostar. Can we do this without a planned tour?

You can do it, but it will be a long day. It's 3 hours each way on the train not counting customs (remember Britain isn't in the EU), lines etc. It is about $100 2nd class round trip prp. Once you're there you can just use the Metro to get around, that part is easy. Personally I wouldn't do it, but I'm not a person who likes long, non-stop days and perhaps you are.

Do it!
Get an Apex ticket, take an early train there and a late one back and have a great time.
My partner and I did just the same last summer, in August. It was truly one of the most memorable days of my life. The sun shone, there was not a cloud in the sky and, best of all, the city was very quiet. The banks of the Seine had been turned into a 'beach' and all was well with the world.
Having been to Paris several times before, we decided to just walk around and take in the sights and sounds. If it's your first time, you might like to just think of two or three places you would like to see and just take your time.
Tickets are about $90 return. You can also buy Paris Visite cards (I think they are called that) for the metro/bus/RER at Waterloo station.

And, FYI, the UK is in the European Union. We don't have euros, though. If you are not EU, then you might have a slightly longer wait at customs both ways, though I think they check passports on the train itself.

I did the reverse day trip (Paris to London) on Eurostar. Although it was a quick trip, I was glad I did it. I got to see things in London that I wouldn't have seen otherwise.

Yes, it's a short time, but you will still get to see some sights. The metro is very easy to use in Paris and you can easily zip across the city in no time in an effort to see some of the things that interest you. I say go for it.

I just checked the fares on the Eurostar Web site. The $90 price is for a leisure return ticket purchased at least 65 days in advance and requires a minimum stay of two nights. All other prices are substantially higher. Is there a special sale going on that I don't know about?

Britain Shrinkers (www.britainshrinkers.com} advertise day trips for £119, including the Paris Visite ticket. Eurostar should be able to offer a cheaper return fare - try contacting them to see what fares they quote.

it was my last full day in europe and i was in london. and the night before i was heavily contemplating to go back to paris (after spending 5 days there) for my last day. but i noticed that i would burn through about 8 hours of my last day and wasn't good use of my time. but if i hadn't been there at all, i would have gone for it. even for a day walking around the city and maybe popping into a museum for an hour or two, would have been well worth it. it's a much more lively city than london. just remember that flying is not any faster. the train is real relaxing. take some picnicing items on board and make a good time of it. also use the time to plan out your paris day.

when you get to paris you'll be at gare de nord. take the 4 line to Chatelet. and then from there you can go anywhere. you could take line 1 to the louvre. that's what i did when i first got there.

Hi Hannah,

Skip London and go to Paris.

Britain is MOST DEFINITELY in the EU!! It's a different country, soooooooo you have to do the customs stuff and all that

Hmmm, a funny thing, ira, I was just going to suggest enjoying London and skipping Paris...

Hi Hannah:

We looked at the day trip to Paris option when we had a 4 day layover in London last fall but found it to be very expensive not to mention a long day just to 'say' we went to Paris as can't see a lot in the ~8 hour gap between trains ...

We opted for a day tour of Bath instead & the Roman Spas there and will do a seperate trip to Paris later ...

And as per Ira's recommendation of skipping London & just going to Paris, I wouldn't have minded that either but we were returning to Canada from Kenya and our options were London or Amsterdam so we chose London ...

Hope this helps ...

Z

Contrary to what the other gentleman said, Britain is in the European Union. Contrary to what another respondent indicated the reason for the customs line is not simply that Britain is another country. All countries in the EU enjoy customs-free travel - for their citizens. So, someone from Germany could travel to Paris without going through customs. Likewise someone from UK could do the same. The reason for the customs lines for us is that we are US citizens, not citizens of an EU country.

Jenstu- we still have to take our passports and get them checked as a British Citizen. Sorry thats what I meant. Customs can still stop us coming back and rake through our duty-frees if they think we look dodgy

Go for it! We did it last year. We'd been to London several times so we weren't missing out on any British sights and thought it would be a fun thing to do. As the other posters agreed, it does make for a long day but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It was fun to spend the day in Paris and it may give you a feel as to whether you would like to return for a longer visit. Live and Enjoy!

I did this 2 years ago, so maybe it's different now, but I don't recall going thru customs. I recall it being an easy trip to go from city center to city center.

If you really wanted to do it, Hannah, you could do the daytrip (about $160 RT for each of you) from Victoria Station to Gare de Nord. Plus, do the hop on/hop off bus tour thing with L'Open Tour (about $20/day for each of you) which you can pick up from across the Place de Parvis of Notre Dame (kinda in front of the Conciergerie, I believe). I'm thinking you can take the RER-B train direct from Gare du Nord to the Notre Dame-St Michel stop. Get out, walk across the bridge to Ile de la Cite to catch the L'Open Tour bus, ride it around for a couple of hours to see the sites, get back to the Notre Dame stop, walk around that area for a while, walk back to the Notre Dame-St Michel station and go back to Gare du Nord to catch your Eurostar back to London.

Sorry - that's Place DU Parvis.

Hi DiAblo,

chacun a son gout.

(Translation: that's why we have chocolate and vanilla).

Sorry about screwing up the EU thing and Britain! I couldn't remember at the time of the posting but knew pounds were still in use and that I had to go through passport control at Waterloo. I wrongly made an assumption and of coure we all know what happens when we assume.