Paris City Highlights Guided Bike Tour

The Opera House, Palais Garnier

The ride begins beside the Palais Garnier, the opera house inaugurated in 1875 and the grandest building of the Second Empire, with its gilded statues, marble columns and the green copper dome crowned by a golden figure. The guide explains the lavish interior, the grand staircase and the underground lake beneath the stage that supplies water for the fire system, and how the wide boulevards radiating from the square were cut through old Paris in the 19th century.

From Opéra the Paris bike tour follows the boulevards west on protected bike lanes, past the department stores of Boulevard Haussmann and the church of the Madeleine with its Greek-temple columns, before dropping down Rue Royale to the river. Meeting is in the underground car park beside the opera house, so bikes are fitted out of the weather and you set off from the heart of the Right Bank.

Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Élysées

Place de la Concorde is the largest square in Paris, laid out in the 18th century between the Tuileries Garden and the Champs-Élysées. At its centre stands the Luxor Obelisk, 3,300 years old and given to France by Egypt in the 1830s, flanked by two fountains and eight statues representing the great cities of France. The guide stops here for the story of the square's turbulent past and for the view in four directions: the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, the Madeleine and the Assemblée Nationale.

Next you ride up the Champs-Élysées, the two-kilometre avenue from the Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe, on the wide tree-lined lower section where gardens and theatres line the road. Cycling the Champs-Élysées on a bike lane is far easier than walking it, and the guide times the stop so you can photograph the arch at the top of the avenue.

Les Invalides and the Pont Alexandre III

Crossing the Seine on the Pont Alexandre III, the most ornate bridge in Paris with its gilded statues and lamp posts, built for the 1900 World's Fair, the route arrives at Les Invalides. The vast complex was built in the 17th century as a residence and hospital for wounded soldiers; its golden dome, regilded with kilos of gold leaf, rises 107 metres above the lawns of the esplanade and shelters the tombs of France's most celebrated soldiers.

Today Les Invalides houses the Army Museum, with cannons lining the front courtyard, and the esplanade in front is a favourite spot for Parisians to picnic and play. The bike tour pauses here on the lawns for a photo of the dome and the story of the building, before taking the quiet streets of the 7th arrondissement towards the Champ de Mars and the Eiffel Tower.

The Eiffel Tower and the Champ de Mars

The Eiffel Tower was built in just over two years for the World's Fair of 1889 and stands 330 metres tall with its antennas, the tallest structure in Paris; it was meant to be dismantled after twenty years and survived because it proved useful for radio. The bike tour approaches across the Champ de Mars, the long park that runs from the École Militaire to the tower's feet, which gives the classic full-length view with the lawns in front.

The guide stops beneath the tower for the story of its construction and its iron lacework, and points out the best angles for photos: from the Champ de Mars, from the Pont d'Iéna and from the Trocadéro across the river. Tickets to go up the tower are not part of the ride, but many riders return later in the day; the Eiffel Tower opening hours run from morning until late evening, with the last ascent before closing.

The Seine riverside and the Louvre

From the tower the ride follows the Seine east, on the riverside paths and quays that give cyclists the river on one side and the monuments on the other: the Musée d'Orsay with its station clocks, the Pont des Arts footbridge and then the Louvre. The Louvre began as a fortress in 1190, became the royal palace and opened as a museum in 1793; its wings enclose the courtyard where the glass pyramid of 1989 marks the main entrance.

The guide takes the group through the Cour Carrée, the oldest courtyard, and out past the pyramid and the Tuileries Garden, explaining how the palace grew over six centuries. Riding this stretch avoids the metro crowds entirely and shows why the banks of the Seine in Paris are listed as a World Heritage site. Allow for a few minutes of photos at the pyramid before the last leg to the islands.

Notre-Dame and Île de la Cité

The furthest point of the ride is Île de la Cité, the island where Paris was founded, reached over the Pont Neuf, the oldest standing bridge in the city, completed in 1607. Notre-Dame Cathedral, begun in 1163 and finished almost two centuries later, stands at the eastern end; restored after the fire of 2019 and reopened with its rebuilt spire, it is the masterpiece of French Gothic, with its rose windows, flying buttresses and gargoyles.

The guide stops in front of the cathedral for its story and for photos from the square, then points out the Conciergerie and Sainte-Chapelle on the way back across the river. The last stretch returns north through the quiet streets behind the Palais Royal to the Opera House, where the bikes are handed back after about three hours and you know exactly where you want to return on foot.