The Parisian subway - updates

I've just return from Paris and I have some updates about the Parisian subway.

It seems that Paris is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow, carrying around 4.5 million passengers a day. You stand in awe of the way this system is managed.


Another fact is that the metro lines 2 and 6 run above-ground much of the way, sometimes offering impressive views of the city.


There is one thing (among others) I like about the Parisian metro, compared to the transport system in Amsterdam: as a tourist, you can just go to any metro station and buy a pack of 10 tickets from a vending machine and you can pay with cash or whatever credit or debit card you have. As simple as that, no hassle, no issues. And, there is always a clerk there who can help you if that is the case.
The metro system in Amsterdam is certainly designed solely for Dutch people. Since they introduced the new OV-chipkaart system, the metro system is a closed one, designed to fleece the tourists. If you need to travel in Amsterdam, as a tourist, you either need to buy the really expensive travel tickets of 2.60 EUR each, valid throughout an hour or, you have to buy for 7 EUR an anonymous OV-card that can be charged with credit. Don't get excited...7 EUR is just for an empty plastic card, with no credit on it. You just need to place it in the special machines you can find only in the metro stations and add some credit. Now is the funny/sick part...these machines are kind of stupid about reading foreign debit cards and you can use a credit card on them. That's when these machines work....sometimes they are just out of order or just stuck in loop, restarting by themselves every minute.

And the story continues: there is no clerk in these metro stations (excepting the main stations) who can help you with some information. You just need to ask a person around you and, maybe, if you meet someone helpful enough, they will help you to but the tickets using a Dutch debit card.


This post was supposed to be about the Parisian metro but I've got carried away by my discontent with the Dutch transport system. My next post is going to touch the ingenious solution used by the French engineers to adjust the carriage wheels to successfully approach tight bends in the track lines.