Hi everyone,
I just thought I'd share two of the highlights of our recent visit to Paris. We have nothing but praise for both of these organizations.
On May 7th, our first full day in the city, we five and five other people enjoyed a bike tour around central Paris with Paul, one of the owners of the Bike About Tours company. He is a friendly, amusing guide, careful of everyone's safety and comfort and full of interesting pieces of history and funny stories. Our tour took us from the smaller, quirkier parts of Paris around the two islands, into the Marais and the Latin Quarter and St. Germain, to where, as he puts it, Paris is "showing off" all its grandeur: around the Obelisk and the Louvre. We had a lunch stop at a terrific sandwich place, and the tour ended with a few recommendations of restaurants and wine bars. Highly recommended. http://www.bikeabouttours.com/

The next evening we were privileged to meet up with a volunteer with the Paris Greeters association, also called "Parisien d'un jour, Parisien toujours." It's an organization that matches Parisians who'd like to walk visitors around their neighbourhood to people who'd like a personal angle on life there, not only the history and monuments of the area, but also what it's like to live there now. We were matched up with a lovely young lady, Sara, who showed us around St. Germain. She spent about 2 1/2 hours telling us about her neighbourhood, answering our questions, telling us her own experiences there, and then sharing a glass of wine with us in a nice cafe. What an opportunity! http://www.parisgreeter.org/home/
I'm happy to provide further details of our experience with these great ways to see the city, if anyone has questions!

When we did our visit with our Paris Greeter, we used a Velieb bike. That was SO much fun.......especially riding past Moulin Rouge at night!

Sandy

Sounds like you had a good time with the Paris Greeters too. I guess you have a "smart" credit-card? or did your guide use his or hers? (we would have loved to use the Velib bikes but didn't think we could because of not having a chip in our Visa cards).

We were able to use his credit card. It was such a great deal because we kept getting new bikes just before our time expired at 30 minutes. It was such a wonderful experience!!! At first it felt really strange not to use a bike helmet though.

Sandy

that's terrific that your guide was able to give you access to those bikes! And I felt the same way you did about the absence of a helmet when we were on the Bike About tour, but just for the first couple of minutes; then I was too busy listening to Paul and looking at the sights!

That was exactly how I felt!! Terrified at first, I kept watching over my son who is NOT allowed to ride his bike in our small neighbourhood in Qualicum Beach without a helmet. All it took to cure me of my fear was the beautiful architecture and surroundings which was a total amount of two minutes
After that I was totally oblivious to the cars racing around us.

My poor husband couldn't join us because he had blisters from the miles we had walked that day so he stayed back at the apt. drinking French wine. We didn't get back until well after midnight. I would have stayed longer but my son reminded me that "dad" would be worried!! I looked at him and said "you have a dad?"

We had even left our bikes at the bottom of Montmartre and hiked up to see the lights of Paris!

I love Paris!

Sandy