The Best Way to See Paris: A Bike Tour

I am not a tour group type of guy. When I was nineteen and back packing around Europe, I was the only backpacker sans the backpacker's bible (i.e. Let's Go Europe). I wander, ask questions and figure things out on the fly. When I went to Africa for the first time, I stepped off the plane and realized I had no idea who was picking me up from the airport nor how to reach them if they did not find me (and, we very nearly did not connect, as he called me by the wrong name when we first walked past each other).

So, I shocked my girlfriend and decided a bike tour of Paris sounded like a great idea even after we had walked almost the entire main city from the Eiffel Tour to the Louvre to Notre Dame.

And, I was right. The bike tour is simply the best way to see Paris, provided you know how to ride a bike, understand English and are unafraid of throwing yourself into traffic.

Fat Tire Bike Tours run tours around Barcelona, Paris and Berlin. The tour guides are mainly Americans, typically Texans (company was started by a Texas A&M graduate), who are either nearly finished with college or taking a break between college and entering the work force or graduate school.

Our tour guide, Taylor, is a Texas A&M student with a proficiency for stacking bikes in tight spaces, fixing flat tires while telling stories and managing to keep 24 strangers safe on a meandering 4-hour tour.

If in Paris, the tour groups meet at the south end of the Eiffel Tour. They offer tours during the day, but we chose the night tour, as we read that one of the best thing to do was to pay a taxi driver to take you to all the spots at night. We figured a bike trip was more fun than a taxi ride.

For a reasonable 28 Euros for an adult, the tour features a three-hour bike tour, an hour boat cruise, free wine, a stop for great ice cream and a tour guide with interesting tidbits, historical anecdotes, recommendations and information on where to catch the NBA Finals later that night.

Starting at the Eiffel Tower, participants walk around the corner to pick up bikes and then take off through the Champ de Mars to see Napoleon's high school and the Peace Monument. From there, the tour hits the Louvre, Tuileries Gardens, Place de la Concorde, Avenue de Champs Elyses, Notre Dame, St Louis Island and more. Throughout the tour, the guide stops and offers insight and information, as well as interesting or funny stories to provide background to the sites and the city. Most of the tour goes through parks, small side streets or bike lanes with only the occasional foray into traffic.

The boat tour is an hour long ride up the Seine which travels from the Statue of Liberty at one end past the isle of St. Louis at the other, offering another opportunity to see the Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Notre Dame and other landmarks in their resplendent beauty. And there is free wine.

While I saw nearly everything while walking about on my own prior to the tour, the tour was well worth the price and definitely the best way to see Paris. I wish I had taken the tour earlier so I could have taken advantage of the tour guide's recommendations.