Hi Ben. I'm going to the Opening Ceremony and my Olympic tickets suggest that I get off Sevres Babylone station to reach a specified access point in the protection perimeter around the River Seine. My journey will begin at Garibaldi station and I plan to purchase origin-destination tickets for a return trip. Where I will be seated (on the Right bank facing Île de la Cité) is quite far from Sevres Babylone station. Is it possible to use my return ticket at a different station closer to where my seat is located upon conclusion of the event to return to my hotel (near Garibaldi station)?
1 answer
Hi there,
Yes I believe there is an easier/closer route, but I'll start off by checking we're talking about the same starting station. Are we talking about Garibaldi station in Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine in NW Paris? The station I'm thinking of is on Metro line 13. If it is this station, you can use a regular Ticket t+ (i.e. the regular Paris Metro ticket) and not an origin-destination/RER ticket to complete this trip, in both directions.
I'm going to assume that the Olympics ticket directs you to Sevres Babylone because they're trying to funnel everyone into one central entry so that security has only one gate they have to manage screenings at. (If that's not the case, there's a much more direct route to get to your seats, but I'll cover that in the return portion of your journey.)
It looks like the easiest / most direct route between the right bank facing Ile-de-la-Cité and Garibaldi would be to take Metro line 14 from Chatelet station in direction Saint Denis Pleyel and riding until Marie de Saint-Ouen station and then walking about 10 min. south to Garibaldi. No transfers are needed, it's a single Paris Metro ticket and Chatelet (Metro 14) station is unaffected by opening ceremonies closures.
If you're able to enter/get to your seats from the right bank then doing the aforementioned trip on Metro 14 might be better/optimal. You'd walk from Garibaldi to Mairie de Saint-Ouen, take Metro 14 in direction Aeroport d'Orly, until Chatelet and then walk to your closest entry gate.
If Garibaldi station is much better for you, you could use Metro 14 from Chatelet (same direction as before: Saint-Denis Pleyel) until Saint Lazare station and then transfer to Metro 13 direction Saint-Denis Université and ride until Garibaldi station.
Please let me know if something seems amiss with my suggestion and we can take another look.
Have a great Olympics experience. Should be pretty unique being the first ever outside of a stadium.