Self Guided along the Seine River Tour of Paris

Overview

Eleven kilometres of protected riverside path, almost entirely flat, running through the middle of Paris. On one side the water, on the other the Institut du Monde Arabe, Notre-Dame, the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, the Pont Neuf, the Eiffel Tower. This self-guided tour follows that path from one end to the other. You begin at the four glass towers of the Bibliothèque François Mitterrand, shaped like open books, and ride west. The Left Bank carries you past the floating Joséphine Baker swimming pool, the Jardin des Plantes and its second-oldest zoo in the world, the statue of Rimbaud, the bouquinistes and their four kilometres of green boxes, Notre-Dame, and the address every French crime novel knows, 36 Quai des Orfèvres. Then the Pont Neuf, the Louvre, the Assemblée Nationale, the Pont Alexandre III, the sewers, the Eiffel Tower, and finally the Île aux Cygnes, where the little sister of the Statue of Liberty looks west across the Atlantic. This is not a live guided tour.