More Paris transport. Trains

(Pic courtesy of Google Images)

By far the easiest way to get around Paris is the the Metro rail system. According to Wikipedia, Paris is exactly 86.928km2. If you look at it on Google Earth, Paris is roughly circular with an approximite radius of 5km (not a particularly large area when you consider that over 2 Million people live inside of it).

To put some comparison for you, as to just how small the actual city of Paris. I have transposed a circle of 5km radius against Sydney, (click on the pic to make it bigger)

For those of you out west, here is the size of Paris city, transposed on Penrith (I have used the council chambers as the centre of the circle.) As you can see it barely takes in all of

Glenmore Park, and certainly does not take in St Marys, and does not even get all of Cranebrook & Mt Pleasant in either.

Anyway I have digressed a little. Getting back to the Paris metro, it is a fantastic way to get around the city and there are stations everywhere. I have been told that no matter where you are in the city you are never more than 500m from a metro station. (Some Gallic hyperbole no doubt!) According to wikipedia "It has 16 lines, mostly underground, and a total length of 214 km (133 mi). There are 300 stations. Since some are served by several lines, there are 384 stops in total "

Apparently it carries 4.5 Million passengers every day, and Chatelet Les-Halles station (right in the centre of the city) is the worlds largest underground station. I would believe that, as the "correspondence" (as it is called in French, which means the trip to change from one train to the other) can take 10 mins at Chatelet and sometimes a walk of more than 1km. (There are even travelators just like at the airport to save you all of the walking)

Some of the trains on the metro lines actually run on tyres, as opposed to rails like

traditional trains. I have no idea why, but it looks kind of funny, when the train pulls up seeing normal car style pneumatic tyres on a train. They are not all like this, some of the other lines run regular type trains, on rails with bogies and steel wheels. (Here is a pic on the right of a train with pneumatic tyres) and a more traditional one below.

(Pic courtesy of Google Images)

As well as the metro, there is also the RER, which is the suburban mass transit train system that

services the whole of the Ile de France region.

This system helps to bring in and send home everyday the other 8 million people that live in the Greater Paris region. (On top of the 2 million people that live in Paris city itself) These are proper heavy type trains and go to all corners of Ile de France and run on through the city. (RER Pics courtesy of Google Images)

Finally I give you the TGV!