zrs70

I am flying in AF F YUL-CDG-JNB. I arrive in CDG at about 6:20 am and depart at 11:15 pm. It will be a Friday, so things should be open in town.

Obviously, I don't want to stay in the airport the whole time. I figure I will use the Arrivals lounge for a shower, rest, and breakfast. Suppose I leave the airport by 9am.

Where do I go? What do I do? What time should I be back? If I am really tired, does either the Arrivals or Departure lounge have quite rooms where I can lie back? IS it worth it to get a day room in a hotel?

Escape

come to AMS just one hop away, we do have rooms where you can lie back !

Falco Peregrinus

It will be a loooong day: plenty of time to enjoy Paris, but it might be quite exhausting too. Considering the jetlag from the (rather short) YUL-CDG segment, I would go for:

1. 07:00 Good shower, breakfast and newspaper time at the arrival lounge of terminal 2C.
2. 08:30 Ride to Paris with the RER train, avoiding morning traffic jam on autoroute A1.
3. 09:15-12:00 Depending on your previous experience of Paris, I would start with a selection of cool walks in areas like Notre Dame, Ile Saint Louis and Pont Neuf to catch the atmosphere, with nice views over the river Seine and La Conciergerie.
4. 12:00 Time for for a pre-lunch drink (apéritif ) at a brasserie terrace at Saint Michel.
5. 13:00 Lunch (Saint Michel? Saint Germain des Prés?)
6. 14:30 Digestive walk (Panthéon or Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris' most beautiful park)
7. 15:00 Métro trip to Trocadéro square to enjoy the view over the Tour Eiffel.
8. 16:30 Métro trip to Opéra with a shopping sequence (Printemps or Galeries Lafayette). You might want to keep your money for the duty-free area of terminal 2F, if you're into luxury and classic items. Less charm, less choice, slightly better price. Or guided tour of the Opéra.
9. 18:00 Tea or coffee near Opéra
10. 19:30 RER back to CDG (Edited: Opéra/Auber is on RER line A, easy connection with line B at Châtelet les Halles).
11. 20:30 Shopping again, planes spotting and enjoy the F lounge at terminal 2F2. Don't fall asleep in the lounge...

No, I don't think so. You have to get used to your new time zone and you will have plenty of time to sleep in F between CDG and JNB. In order not to get too exhausted, avoid the temptation of visiting museums with little opportunities to sit down. Café terraces and parks can be very relaxing places in Paris. Limit your métro journeys to 3 areas: Notre Dame/St Michel/St Germain (close to each other), Trocadéro or Tour Eiffel, Opéra.

Enjoy...

rangerss75

Here's my suggestion (cut and pasted from another thread). And Falco Peregrinus's suggestion of the area around Notre-Dame/St Michel/Luxembourg is a good one too.

Use the RER (you can walk to the station easily from your arrival terminal) to get into Paris to the Gare du Nord or wherever you want to go, as FP suggests.

If you don't know Paris at all, and are tired, then do a river trip, and see all the sites sitting down. Catch the 42 bus from the Gare du Nord (the bus station is above the platforms at which you arrive on the train from the airport) and get off at the Place de l'Alma. (You could also change from the RER to the Métro at Gare-du-Nord and go to Alma but from the bus you see more. It starts at the Gare du Nord and you will get a seat). It's 1€40 and there is a map of the route and stops in the bus. You'll pass the Opéra, the Madeleine, the Place de la Concorde and the Champs Elysées on the way. From the bus stop go down the slope to the river and take a Bateau Mouche (avoid the boats with lunch - go to a restaurant instead) and sit upstairs. You'll see everything in about an hour - Tuileries, Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Notre-Dame, Iles de la Cité and St Louis, then at the end of the trip Palais de Chaillot and the Eiffel Tower - and come back to where you started. The same bus goes back to the Gare du Nord or you can just walk around until you drop (up the ave George V from the boat to the Champs Elysées for example) and catch the Métro back there.

If your trip is soon, note that August 15th is a public holiday.

If you've done the sights, why not simply explore a district of Paris you don't know well? The Canal St Martin area, ten minutes walk from the Gare du Nord, is free of tourists, and is pretty. You can walk along its banks right out to the Science Museum (closed on Mondays) and just off the canal is the beautiful courtyard of the Hôpital St Louis by the same architect as the better known Place des Vosges (closed weekends). There are plenty of reasonable restaurants once you get away from the canal banks. Up the hill, the parc Buttes Chaumont is pretty and unspoilt. Pick up a city map from the tourist office at the Gare du Nord.

The RER train ticket you buy to come into Paris from the airport includes travel to any Métro station (and to any RER station in Zone 1 only). There is no need to buy another ticket at the Gare du Nord, or Châtelet-Les Halles, or wherever you get off the RER. Simply put the ticket through the gate entrance, and pick it up again, as you change to a Métro line. In the same way, when you go back to the airport, your return airport line ticket is valid from any Métro station all the way back to CDG. You get off at Roissy Aéroport CDG 2.

TGV

Falco's program seems quite good to me.

But one detail: if you take the RER at Auber (Line A) you have 1 connection in Chatelet les Halles to go to CDG (using line B).

Falco Peregrinus

Ah, yes... you're right. Easy RER connection at Châtelet Les Halles, using the connection hall over the platforms. Roissybus from Opéra might be another option, avoiding long walks in the RER corridors... (Friday evening? Traffic jam?).