Bordeaux and Palmiers

It’s funny how you sometimes don’t see things until you’re ready to see them.

I walk down rue Monge most days… nearly every day. I’ve gotten to know the stores and the market days by heart. I know what to expect: nothing surprises me on rue Monge.

Just a little bit down rue Monge is a turnoff for rue de Navarre, which leads to the back entrance of the Roman arena I featured on here a while back. Other than that, there’s nothing of real interest down this street, so I usually walk right past it.

But one recent afternoon, when my headphones had run out of batteries, I ended up paying much more attention to my usual walk than I do on a normal day, and I actually noticed rue de Navarre.

And I noticed this. A hidden metro station.

I suppose it’s not really all that hidden. It’s not even an unfamiliar station: just another entrance to one that I never use at Place Monge. It’s close enough to home that I would never ride the metro to get there, but far enough away that I would never get off and walk home. I don’t think I’ve ever even been inside the stop, though God knows how many times I’ve walked past the other entrance, which is right next to the Place Monge market.

There was something about this station that struck me, and it wasn’t just the fact that I’d never noticed it before. I love the sign, which seems so old-fashioned to me: I’ve never seen one like it anywhere in the city. I’d like to know who uses this exit, which seems so useless to me, when the other is right in the middle of a bustling marketplace.

It’s nice to know sometimes that even my most familiar haunts in Paris still hold surprises for me.

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I know. It looks daunting. But don’t worry… it’s not all that hard.

In comparison with those nice, easy to read métro and RER maps posted on the sides of every métro stop in Paris, the bus map kind of looks like it’s all over the place… which it is. But this is not a good reason to avoid taking the bus: I did for the first year I lived here, and you miss out on a lot by making all of your travel the underground type.

Understanding the entire bus system is daunting and can take months. But starting to take buses is a great way to get around and see parts of Paris you would never see: often, visitors to Paris think of the layout of the city more in terms of which locations are on the same métro line and not where they are actually geographically placed. By riding the bus, you may discover an easier way to get from point A to point B than switching trains three times, and you’ll see a lot of things that many tourists never find the time to see: ivy covered buildings, local cafés, schools, playgrounds and lots more.

The first step to understanding the buses is to understand even one line. Go to the bus stop outside your hotel/hostel/friend’s apartment on whose couch you’re crashing and take a look at the simple, easy to read map on the inside of the bus shelter: this one, in contrast to that tangle of colored lines I’ve posted up top, will only have stops on the line (or lines) that stop at that particular stop. You can easily see which direction the bus will be going, and, in most cases, to go the opposite way, you simply cross the street. Once you get to know one line, find it on the larger, confused bus map… doesn’t it make a lot more sense now?

Another great way to get to know the bus system in Paris is to use the RATP website: ratp.fr. When you land on the home page, there are two boxes located under the title “se déplacer en Ile-de-France,” getting around in Ile-de-France. Simply type in your location on the left and your destination on the right, select the appropriate button for what you have entered (addresse/address, station/métro stop, lieu/place of interest), and click the button labeled itinéraire. A new page will pop up, asking you to click the hyperlink at the top of the page, which will open a pop-up window that will give you the easiest way to get to your destination based on the current time. To look for earlier and later modes of travel, use the précedent (earlier) and suivant (later) buttons at the top of the page. There are also options to change your results based upon fewest transfers, fastest way of getting to your location, shortest walking time and even which modes of transport you want to use (for example, if you would like to use the bus and tram, but not the métro or RER).

This site is fairly user-friendly, and there’s even the possibility to translate it into your native tongue (look for the flags at the upper right-hand corner of the page).

To ride the bus, you can either use one ticket from your carnet de dix (pack of ten), valid for riding the bus, métro, RER within the city and the tram, or you can just swipe your NaviGo (this is a cheap way to get around: one week of unlimited travel for zone one is about 20 euros… you can’t even get two carnets for that!)