A 10 hour layover in Paris

I thought 10 hours would be enough time to see a bit of Paris. It’s been over 20 years since the last time I visited Paris, and I was excited to go, even for a quick visit. While searching for a flight for my May trip, I found a great deal flying Air France to Basel with a nearly 11 hour layover in Paris. So then, I had to figure out what we were going to do with our 10 hours.

It was very apparent that one should not leave the airport if the layover is 5-6 hours or less, but 10 hours would most likely be enough time. It takes about an hour to get from Charles De Gaulle to the city center and passing through customs and immigration is always a bit of an unknown. And then there is the return and re-entry to the airport to consider.

We were fortunate, our flight arrived on time, and passing through passport control and customs did not take long at all. There is luggage storage upstairs in CDG terminal 2, just before the escalators down to the RER train station, which was super helpful. The RER B train goes in to Paris regularly and takes about an hour. We were on the ground in Paris, just about 2 hours after we landed.

I decided on a walking loop connecting some of the most popular sites. The RER B stops right at Notre Dame, so that was an excellent starting point. Unfortunately, it was just a couple weeks after the fire, so the entire cathedral was fenced off, but it is still beautiful.

We stopped for a quick snack on the Ile de la Cite.

And then walked along the Seine in periodic showers, enjoying the views.

Eventually the Eiffel Tower started to peak through.

From the Eiffel Tower we turned north toward the Arc de Triomphe. We even had enough time to get wait in line for tickets and go to the roof for some great views.

We didn’t quite complete the whole loop, we walked all the way down the Champs-Elysees through the Place de la Concorde and into the Jardin des Tuileries. That was approximately four hours of walking and we paused in the Tuileries Garden for a break and then decided that we were pretty tired and hopped on the metro back to the RER and the airport and on to our flight to Basel.