I had never flown Transavia, so I was looking forward to seeing what the experience would be like flying from Prague to Paris Orly.
Getting to the Airport
From Holesovice it was fairly straight forward to get to the airport with a 90 minute 36CZK ticket.
It was a short walk to the number 1 tram, which took about 20 minutes to get to the 119 bus.
Also there was a fantastic view, watching the sunrise over Prague.
Of course, make sure you get on the correct 119 bus that says airport on it. Otherwise you might do what I did, and jump on the first 119 bus you see, and end up going in the opposite direction of the airport.
Luckily about 8 minutes in, I realised I was heading in the wrong direction, jumped off, and grabbed the correct bus heading in the right direction.
Prague Airport
Then arriving at the airport was pretty smooth. And it was a beautiful airport.
Airport security was pretty smooth too, and it wasn’t long before it was time to board.
As I mentioned earlier, this was the first time I’d ever flown Transavia, and it was a great experience. The staff were friendly, and the flight was on time.
It was a beautiful morning in Czech as we took off.
Arriving in Paris Orly
It was a weird feeling being in Paris. Suddenly I felt tense, and other passengers were walking very fast and pushing past like a medical emergency, which was strange, as I hadn’t seen this at an airport before.
I had read online that the cheapest and easiest way into central Paris is the tram and then the train.
Simple? Definitely not. It seems the airport WANTS you to do the higher priced options, like Orlybus.
Luckily the tram was well sign-posted and many locals knew where to go as they headed straight there.
The Tram is called – T7. Now, I’m still not 100% sure how to pay for using it. The machines at the station were not simple. Luckily a stranger offered some advice. He told me to buy 2 tickets to get me to the centre. Each ticket was EUR1.90, so allegedly it would cost EUR3.80.
So I bought the tickets, jumped on the tram, and then got off at Gare de Rungis la Fraternelle, and walked to the train station for the RER C Train to Saint-Michel Notre Dame.
It was only about 20 minutes on the train, and then I was at Saint Michel Notre Dame. Except I had a little problem… my ticket wouldn’t let me out.
So I went to the Information Office, who told me I had the wrong ticket, but then didn’t know how to help me, so just let me through the gate anyway.
The staff looked very annoyed to be talking to a tourist. I guess they have major tourism fatigue.
I like to think of myself as a savvy traveler, so I hate to think how first time travelers might handle this journey.
To the Metro
So next it was to Metro 4 to get up to Montmartre, which would be about 15 minutes on the train.
This time, I decided to buy – Car net – the old system Paris has where the ticket machines spit out 10 little bits of paper, giving you 10 journeys for only EUR14.50.
It was fairly straight forward, and soon I was on my airbnb street.
Welcome to Paris.