Paris and Rome Hostels

Guide to Paris-Orly airport

Woohooo, we are in a tight situation here. Here goes:

We reserved 4 nights (29 dec - 1 jan) in the Etap Epinay hostel in Paris. According to the description, its located in the outskirts, 0.7k away from public transport - a train station.

Does anyone know this place? Would you consider appropiate looking for a hostel located closer to the city? How about the hours for the public transport, do they close after a certain hour? That would really really be unconvenient.

Unfortunately there are very few hostels available now...

Address is:

Etap Epinay sur Seine
51 av de Marcehal de Lattre de Tassigny
93800 Epinay sur Seine
Paris

Ground transportation from Fiumicino to Rome

The a Roma is OK and Gay

The airport is not in Paris itself, but in the outskirts and from my experience, it will be faster and cheeper for you to take a taxi to go to the hotel, because the transportation around the airport is quite expensive (at least for a poor student like me ). Epinay sur Seine is a town in the "Banlieue" of Paris, and the subway doesn't go that far, so you'll need to take the "RER C" (train) if you want to go to Paris itself (12 minutes from your hotel if you don't have a car). In about half an hour you can be in the center of Paris (and there, the train tickets are not very expensive). If you plan to visit a lot of places, I recommend you to buy a "ticket paris-visite", with which you'll be able to take the subway as often as you want!
more informations:
RATP web site (trains and subways in Paris and the outskirts)

http://www.hostels.com/en/it.ro.html

http://www.guideforeurope.com/bookhostelsitaly.html

This is so dangerous... giving me that old travel bug...

The "ticket Paris-visite" is a 'must', IMHO, if you visit (inner, rel) Paris from Epinay.

As Radical Edward said, it's just a short walk and ride by RER.
When I stay in Paris (which more than once per year), I usually stay in the outskirts: it really doesn't take you much longer to reach the interesting places than staying in some arrondisements.

By the way, why did you choose Epinay for your Hotel? It's pretty far away from the airport (that's why you'll NEED a taxi). In fact, Orly is in the south of Paris, and Epinay in the north., so you'll have to cross Paris (or tho take the "périphérique", but it's another story...) to join the hotel from the airport... But the northern suburb has a better transportation service.
Have a nice trip! :wink:

I suppose, I'm the only one who likes going along the périphérique - especially in the morning and afternoon/evening. (Always testing, if the time announcements are correct.) :wink:

Aaaaaaah!!! Im going to cry .

Yeah, I noticed that in the rail station map in the link that you provided. Probably we chose that one because:

a) We are total ignorants of the Parisinian geography.
b) There were not too many options.
c) Its cheap, pretty, and has a bathroom.
d) We didnt care to investigate where exactly was located.

Dang... we might need to find something close and cancel the reservation. The ticket WH suggested is kind of expensive for 5 days :O

It really depends on how much you travel from where :wink:


For last minutes offers re hostel/hotel you may pewrhaps find a good rate here

I will take a look at that, thanks WH!

By the way - and this worries me more - how's the curfew situation in Paris? Will we, as humble tourists, be affected by this? I wouldn't like the idea of being locked away by midnight...

not in rome, anyway.. re the hostels I looked up.
But I don't know about Paris.. re the hostels or the streets..

Epinay sounded familiar so I googled and rioting, so called, did occur there, though as in many other places, I suspect the whole area is not a problem. Radical Edward would know more if it was, or if there is a curfew.

Curfew have been in some town districts for youth under 16 in some French towns and cities.

I don't think this will effect you at all.

Anyway, nobody cares about the Curfew. And only some mayors of the most quiet towns, wanting to have more "elderly votes" in the next elections, decided on the curfew... I don't think Epinay has one...
I don't think you need to cancel your reservation, as the hotel is far from the airport, but you won't spend your time in the airport, I suppose...

Hell yeah! Hope JoeFX sees this...

Thanks! I might bother you all again

You guys could ask Raphillon about the areas with hostels in Rome. A lot of them looked pretty good to me. I've stayed at a couple of one stars and one three star hotel in rome, and the one star that was crumby (but I am still fond of it so I won't mention its name) - anyway, some of those seem equivalent to the one star hotels.

The area around the railroad station is a little iffy, but exacty which block, or which side, north south east or west, I dunno. And maybe none of it is all so tough as it is chockful of tourists. I do recommend staying in the city - first of all, none of the places I saw mentioned any limit on when to show up after going out in the evening. And second, I can't imagine not staying in the city.

I have been approached walking from stazione Termini myself by a group who wanted my purse, and luckily my husband was not far away and they scattered. On the other hand, I have nothing of interest in my purse in big cities, as I an obvious tourist mark no matter how I try not to be obvious - not because I don't want to be robbed, and not because I want to look italian, but because I gather italians expect a certain presence from older women, however eccentric.
Anyway, if you zero in on a few hostels or b and bs, Raphillon could tell you which area might be better.