London has its Underground and New York has its Subway. In contrast, Paris has its Metro and it is one of the best ways to navigate your way around the city. Also known as the Metropolitain, it runs a close knit network of lines all over Paris. This makes it supremely easy to get from place to place as you find your way to all the most famous (and not so famous) destinations that Paris has to offer.

It may help to know a few things about the Metro before you use it for the first time however. For example sixteen lines form the whole network, and they intersect at various places. Of the 384 stops that exist, just under one sixth of them are capable of transferring you to another line.

It makes sense to grab a map of the Metro system as soon as you arrive in Paris, regardless of how long you are staying there for. Most people cannot resist the experience of hopping on the Metro even if they could happily walk everywhere, and you may well feel the same. You can also check a copy of the map online before you go if you want to get ahead of the situation and familiarise yourself with the lines.

The network itself is very close knit and most stations are actually quite close to each other. This makes the network better to use if you are travelling over a longer distance, but it is always good to know you aren’t far away from a station. The map is easy to look at because all the lines are colour coded, so you just have to find out where it is best to change lines if you need to.

It is certainly an experience to try and navigate the lines on your own. Even if your French is a little rusty you should be able to use the colours and the names of the stations to find your route from A to B. And even if you get lost it all adds to the fun!