On Saturdays and Sundays, from March to November, Paris shuts down some of the highways the run along the Seine. On the Right Bank the road is closed to motorized traffic from the Tuilleries to the Pont Charles De Gaulle. On the left bank, a portion of the Voie Expresse Rive Gauche is also closed, from near the Eiffel Tower to Bridge de la Concorde, where you can then switch to the right side. During July and August it may always closed to motorized traffic. Bikers share the highway with “rollers” and pedestrians. Since the views along the Seine are spectacular, this is a popular outing and something we try to do every Sunday we are in Paris.
As we live near Montparnasse, near the tower and train station (great landmarks; always know where home is from basically anywhere in Paris), we’ll head down rue de Pasteur, making a slight right onto Av. de Breteuil. Right in front of you is the golden dome of Place des Invalides; beautiful view. We make a right around the roundabout (That’s a statue of Pasteur in the roundabout, may want to stop and take a look; its an interesting sculpture) onto Av. de Saxe, and now we have the Eiffel Tower right in front of us. We ride around the Military School and then bike through the gardens of the Tower to the Quai Branly that runs along the Seine. At the L’Alma bridge you can turn down onto the Expresse, which should have no traffic except for bikers, runners, walkers and skaters.
We follow that until to Bridge de la Concorde, take it over and then follow the road here. You can actually take it a long ways, past the Gare de Lyon and Bercy park and farther. We’ll do that, and then go back to the Gare and take the Pont d’Austerlitz over and go up Bl. de l’Hopital to Saint Marcel and then Montparnasse and then home. But there’s numerous stops you can make along the way, and we usually do. Today it was at the Jardin des Plantes and then took in the Grande Galerie d’Evolution – fascinating.