Paris travel info

At eight in the morning there's a queue outside the neighbourhood bakery, everyone leaving with a baguette under one arm. Café chairs all face the street, because ordering one espresso and watching people go by is the city's default pastime. Grey zinc roofs and cream-coloured Haussmann façades run on for miles, and every corner you turn looks like a film you've already seen.

The Seine splits the city in two. The Right Bank has the Louvre, the Opéra and the narrow lanes of the Marais; the Left Bank has the cafés of Saint-Germain, the bookshops of the Latin Quarter and the Eiffel Tower. It's smaller than you'd think: Notre-Dame to the Eiffel Tower along the river is about an hour on foot, and once you've watched the sun go down from a bridge you'll get why people say walking is the whole point.

There's some homework, from museum bookings to Sunday closures and pickpockets on the metro, but none of it is hard if you know in advance. Border checks (EES) and the transit fare system both changed recently, so skim the notes below before you fly.

Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (Roissy) (CDG)

Paris-Orly Airport (ORY)