How to Go from Paris’ Gare d’Austerlitz Railway Station
to Our Office, or to our Guest Apartments, in the Same Building

Welcome to Paris. You have just stumbled off your train at the Gare d’Austerlitz. Now you have to make your way to our office.

If you arrived by overnight train, and have to kill time waiting for us to open, you may wish to shower in the elaborate rest room facility, to the left as you come off the train (private showers and necessary linens can be rented for a modest cost). Cafés for a coffee and a croissant abound in the rue Montorgueil, a block from our front door.

Our office is a glass doored commerce, between the doors to numbers 2 & 4 of the rue Dussoubs, in Paris’ 2nd Arrondissement. The closest métro stop is Etienne-Marcel, on line 4, but there are two others almost as close: Les Halles, and Réaumur-Sebastopol. These instructions send you to Les Halles, since that is the easiest to reach from the Gare d’Austerlitz.

Here is a link to the Google neighborhood map. Note that the siting of the métro stations is not accurate, and should be ignored. However, the map accurately represents the streets.


To Reach Us — Generalities
...you will be taking the Métro. Actually, your second line (you must change trains mid-trip) belongs to a sub-set of the métro called the RER (a sort of express métro).

Locating Your Train
Find the entrance to the métro (straight ahead as you come off the trains). One métro line actually runs through the middle of the station’s vaulted train shed, on a bridge. This impetuous behavior makes the métro in general easy to find, but the particular line you are looking for is underground, directly beneath the impetuous one.

Purchasing Your Ticket
Once at the ticket window, or the automatic machines, buy a carnet de billets (pronounced “car-nay' duh bee-yea'” (don't pronounce the 's'). If you wish to say please, it is “see voo play,” is said after the “car-nay” stuff, and will be appreciated.) This is a batch of 10 tickets, valid for travel on all Paris métro and bus lines. Unless you are headed directly for the airport, you will have plenty of chances to use them. They are a bit more than half the price of single tickets, and we will take unused ones off your hands if you have extra when you leave town. The machines will label the tickets with part or all of the following words: Carnet de 10 billets, plein tarif (not demi-tarif”). They are sometimes called “Tickets T,” which is a brand name signifying that they are valid within the urban center, and not for travel to outer suburbs.

General notes about riding the métro:
  • Always keep your ticket until the end of your trip, since it can be inspected at any time by teams of roving tax auditors.
  • If you are worried about being on the correct platform, there is a sign at the center of each platform telling you in which direction the trains are travelling (the last station on the line defines the direction of travel).
  • There are strip maps of the individual line on which the train is travelling over each car door, to help you follow your progress through the system.

Making Your Trip

Step 1, Finding and Riding the Train
Use one of the tickets you purchased (see “To Reach Us,” above), proceed through the turnstiles, and look for signs that lead you to the subterranean line 10, Direction Boulogne. Take any train from that platform. Ride 4 stops, and detrain at Cluny La Sorbonne. Walk towards the front of the train and exit there.

Step 2, Changing Trains, Riding the Second Train
Follow orange Correspondence signs, leading you towards RER line B (the “B” in a blue circle), Direction Roissy Aeroport Charles de Gaulle, and Mitry-Claye. The same ticket you used to get into the subway at Austerlitz will work to get you though another set of turnstyles that you encounter as you pass from one line to the other.

These signs will lead you down a medium-length passage and then down two long flights of stairs to another platform (to your left at the bottom of the long stairs). Take any train from this platform. Get off in one stop, at the Châtelet - Les Halles station.

Step 3, Exiting the Métro

  • When you get off at Châtelet - Les Halles, walk to the front of the train.
  • Go up the escalator that you find at the front of the platform.
  • At the top of the escalator you will see dark blue Sortie signs, with different sorties (exits) indicated. The one you want is labeled Rue Rambuteau, Rue Turbigo, and is adjacent to the top of the escalator / stair.
  • Go through the ticket barriers you find barring your way (using your little subway ticket), and go up another flight of stairs/escalators, still following the Rambuteau/Turbigo signs.
  • At the top of these stairs / escalators, Rambuteau/Turbigo signs will lead you to the right, and on up a further series of three flights of stairs / escalators. You would now expect to be on the 7th floor of some building, but you have just made it up to street level. More precisely, you exit the métro onto the pedestrian rue Rambuteau.

Step 4, Walking to Our Office

  • Turn right, onto the pedestrian rue Rambuteau. In front of you are a newsstand and a rather large church. We'll let you figure out which is which.
  • Slink along the wall that is now to your right, rounding the corner, thus putting the church on your left hand, and arriving at the top of a flight of stairs.

At the bottom of the stairs, more-or-less straight in front of you now, between two cafés, a semi-pedestrian street leads away (the rue Montorgueil). Take this.

  • Your third right (at a brasserie called Grill Montorgueil) is the rue Tiquetonne. Turn right onto this.
  • Your first left, a fairly long block away, is the rue Dussoubs. Make this left turn, onto rue Dussoubs. Now STOP.

Our storefront is the unprepossessing (it’s your money) glass door between numbers 2 and 4, on your right after you turn into the rue Dussoubs. If the iron curtain is still down it means we aren't up yet. If the curtain is up, but the front room is dark, it means that we've gone out for coffee, or are in the basement. Try knocking on the glass door with a key or a coin (so that we can hear you from the basement), or looking into local bars. Or wait: we’ll be back soon.

Our normal opening hours are here.