I do not normally do posts about the problems and issues round travelling with a wheelchair. But having spent three days navigating our way around Paris, I am going to break my normal rule to give some tips and advice for those who might be planning something similar.

My first advice is of things to avoid:-

The Café Marly

We arranged to have lunch with friends in the Café Marly, convenient for the Louvre. We were made to wait fifteen minutes outside and then another fifteen minutes before being told there was no disabled access. I would have thought they might already know.

The RER

The RER is supposedly disabled accessible. It is if you can find someone to manage the special ramp required to get on to the train, but we did not know this before we arrived on the platform, so missed several trains before retracing our steps to find someone to assist. Not straightforward in Chatelet when we were late for a performance of Cabaret (we left two hours to get there).

The Metro

Lines One and Two are also supposedly disabled accessible. They are not.

Walking

In many ways, walking in Paris is the greatest possible pleasure. But not so much with a wheelchair. The pavements are narrow. Shopkeepers often put out advertisements mounted on an immovable metal base making the pavement impassable. People are, perhaps not surprisingly, annoyed to be confronted by a wheelchair blocking the pavement, especially in the Marais on a Saturday afternoon.

But it was not all bad:-

Eurostar

Everyone on Eurostar in both London and Paris was incredibly helpful.

Buses

Parisian buses are fantastic (when they come) – fast, spacious, easy to get on and off, better than in London. They go everywhere and Google makes finding routes straightforward.

Museums

In general, the people in museums were pretty helpful, particularly one of the guards in the Musée de la Chasse.

G7

There is a taxi app called G7 with which you can book accessible taxis. It worked really well except for the time when none were available.

So, all-in-all, it can be done, but is far from straightforward. In London, legislation must have made installing lifts compulsory, particularly for public institutions, but in Paris, the culture feels very different: much less sympathetic both institutionally and culturally. It makes one grateful for London’s culture of tolerance and helpfulness.

The benefit – oddly – is that everything takes a lot of time, which slows one down and allows one to look about and pay attention.