Practical tips for visiting Paris

Foreign tourists usually travel to Paris by plane. They most often use Orly or Charles de Gaulle airports. Low-cost airlines then offer flights to Beauvais, which is 85 km from Paris. The journey to the center takes about 90 minutes.
How to travel around Paris - if you are an active tourist, you can combine walking and cycling in the city. There are several bike rental companies, such as the largest Vélib, which offers both regular bicycles and electric bicycles. You can also get anywhere in Paris quite comfortably by metro. Be careful, from the beginning of 2025, different rules will apply to public transport - metro and train travel costs more than bus and tram travel. You can top up your Navigo Card with single and all-day fares in vending machines, which you can find in all metro stations and at some tram stops.

Take a travel adapter with you, as some electrical plugs in Paris look different from ours.

Book your entrance to famous monuments online in advance. Opening hours vary throughout the year and can be very busy during peak season. For example, Notre Dame is open to tourists even during mass, but Sacre Couer is closed during mass.

If you want to enjoy Paris in peace and from a different perspective, take a boat trip. You can take a classic big boat or an amphibious yellow bus.

If you don’t want to bump into tourists or freeze in Paris, go in April or October, off-peak season.

In many places in Paris you will find Olympic rings as a souvenir of the 2024 Olympic Games.