If you are visiting Paris on a city break, no matter how many days you have, you’ll quickly realize that it’s just not going to be enough. The city is breathtaking in its scale and history and the number of sights for a visitor to take in is truly staggering. So, for the tourist who has only a few days, where do you start? We recommend an escorted tour of France that includes Paris and the surrounding cities, of if you have less time an independent Paris vacation that includes the essentials like transportation to and from the airport, hotel accommodations and sightseeing highlights, but if you do end up on your own, one way of getting a good look at much of what Paris has to offer is by using one of the many open top bus tours. This may seem like a predictable tourist thing to do and many people are put off the idea because they believe they only drive past the sights, but this is no longer the case with open top bus tours in many cities around the world. Operators have addressed this issue and you can hop on and off the buses as you go, using them as both your mode of transport and your tour guide.
If you look for the Paris L’Open Tour buses, you’ll find just such an operator with a service designed to help you get around the city while seeing as much as possible. L’Open Tour buses are open top double decker buses in a bright green livery (so you can see them coming) that operate across four different city centre routes. To use the service, you just need to find one of the bus stops marked with their name. After that, get on board and buy your ticket from the driver. You’ll get a leaflet showing you the operating times, the different routes and all the stops and points where the routes intersect. The driver will also give you a set of headphones to keep that you can use on the bus to listen to a commentary as you go in the language of your choice. Tickets last for one or two days, start and finish from 4pm and allow you to use all of the routes.
The routes cover the city well and will take you from the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe in the west, to Montmartre in the north, the Bastille in the east and Montparnasse in the south. Watch for the points where the routes intersect as these are the stops you will need to use to change routes. The routes are color coded and the buses carry a coloured indicator in their front windows to let you know which route a particular bus is on. Watch out for bus frequencies though, as they vary with the routes. Your leaflet will tell you how long you need to wait for each route bus, but there are many buses on each route at any one time and on the most popular route, the Paris Grand Tour, you’ll only have a wait of five minutes or so between buses in high season.
One idea for these bus tours is to use them to decide what you want to investigate further during your stay. Take a morning and cram in as much of each route as you can, but take a notebook so you can jot down the names of the sights and streets you want to revisit and the bus stop numbers you need to use for them. Remember your ticket is valid for at least one whole day, so you can easily use the same bus route to get back to where you want to be.
If changing routes is not your scene and you’re looking for a tour that will show the highlights, take the Paris Grand Tour route. This route straddles the river Seine in the west of the city centre and will take you past such famous sights as the Arc de Triomphe, the Trocadero, the Eiffel Tower, Les Invalides, the Louvre and the cathedral of Notre Dame. In fact, for any visitor on their first trip to Paris, it could be argued that this tour is not to be missed and it will give you the opportunity to decide which of these famous landmarks you want to go back and see in more detail first.
The days of the captive audience on the boring bus tour lecture are over. Most open top bus tour operators have embraced the hop-on hop-off approach and even if L’Open Tour buses don’t appeal to you, there are other operators offering similar services. These buses really can help you make the most of your visit to Paris and offer a great way to help you get your bearings in a new and truly stunning city.
