+ Paris 101 (click to open)

About Paris

• Places for Bikes City Rating : 87 out of 100. Comprehensive and holistic rating on ridership, safety, network, reach and acceleration. Compare this score to Amsterdam's rating of 82.
• Walk Score : 100. Walk Score measures the walkability of any address based on the distance to nearby places and pedestrian friendliness.

Maps

• Paris Bike Map
• Transit Map
• Velib - Paris' bike share

Of all the elected or appointed jobs in the world, few individual people have as much actual power as a big city mayor with a broad support base. Anne Hidalgo made urban mobility and human scale design the focus of her campaign, and then made good on her promises once elected. She ran the greenest Olympics in modern history, and set about remaking vast swathes of her beloved city, reclaiming precious space from the automobile and giving it back to residents. Moving cars through Paris is no longer the top priority for their streets. The streets once again belong to the residents who are forced to live and breathe next to them every day. Air and water pollution levels have plummeted. Green space abounds, plants flourish, traffic noise is greatly reduced, and getting around by foot and by bike feels first-class. And so it is that we find ourselves in 2025, marveling at our good luck. Visiting Paris now means you get to jump towards the later part of a vast, grand experiment, where drawings have become physical things, where speeches and vision have become reality. It’s a magical thing to witness transformation on this scale, and we are fortunate to have this experience.

Our own visit drew inspiration from a lifetime of seeing Paris represented on film, especially the impossibly charming film “Amelie” (and a nod to “Sabrina”). We made it a point to have a meal at the café where Amelie worked, and it was great. Deciding where to go each day was difficult, with so many incredible choices. But getting there on a bike was easy. And the baked-in side effect of biking to these places is that you will find a thousand small charming things on your way. If you don’t feel like planning out your meals, just follow your nose, or choose the most charming sidewalk seating you can find. You’re not going to have bad food in Paris, so don’t overthink it.

The real reason we went to France, however, was to visit a little girl named Penelope. Megan was a surrogate for a French family about 5 years ago, and gave birth to an amazing little girl who is now flourishing in an impossibly picturesque town in southern France. Her parents were kind enough to host us, and we got know her all over again. Never ones to waste a good opportunity, we added Paris onto the trip. Unfortunately, our timing coincided with a general strike by Paris’s sanitation workers, which meant large piles of bagged (and unbagged) garbage dotted every sidewalk. You may notice a lack of everyday street scenes in our photos… our resident photographer was not always able to avoid a pile or two sneaking into the frame. We did our best to present Paris in its best light.

+ Bike Safety, Etiquette and Laws (click to open)

Mayor Hidalgo’s mission is represented well by the Parisian tourism office. Their webpage, Paris by bike: practical information, has a wealth of information including a current map of bike parking locations, required bike equipment, laws, a bikeway map, map of bikeshare locations, bike friendly businesses and mobile apps for touring. It’s almost as if they were trying to put us out of business - if all tourism agencies did so much to inform and welcome bike tourists, we wouldn’t be needed.

Etiquette

Take this with a grain of salt, because we visited during non-touristy March, but the bikeways were pretty free flowing with few people walking in the bikeways. In contrast to “rule-abiding” Barcelona, which is the city we visited next, Parisians seemed to do whatever they felt was best for them, which included riding the wrong way on a cycletrack or going through a red light with no cross traffic. There were some congested spots at intersections, and the predictable percentage of tourists who were new to urban riding mixing in with seasoned locals.

Tips: try to get a mental map of where you are going in advance and if you have to stop for directions, pull over out of the bike stream. Use your bell when passing.

Safety

Helmets are mandatory for children under 12, and all bikes are required to have front white/yellow lights and reflectors, rear red lights and reflectors, and yellow reflectors in the pedals and wheels. Outside urban area, hi-viz vests are mandatory. The pace in Paris (in March, anyway) was efficient but not frantic, with enough fellow cyclists to make you feel part of a flow, but not so many that it felt crowded. Bikes are ever-present outside businesses and major attractions.

Security

There are almost 60,000 bike racks in Paris at last count, which sounds like a lot. But we still had to hunt up and down the block more than once to find any with free space - a testament to how enjoyable and normal it is to bike there. You WILL need to lock to something real, though, because like all big cities, bike thieves never sleep. A number of traditional car-garage businesses have set up bike parking sections inside the garages, with many offering legitimate security patrols.

Paris Culture

Paris bike culture is fairly relaxed for a city of that size. People dress beautifully (dressing for the destination, not for the bike ride), and we saw happy parents biking even happier kiddos. Paris hasn’t achieved the Netherlands’ level of bike culture yet - the cargo bikes, the independent kids, the whole-family-on-one-bike, etc. But they appear to be well on their way - much, much closer than London, for example.

Best Bike Rides in Paris

+ Bike Rentals & Tours (click to open)

Rentals

BIKE SHARE

• Velib - Paris’ bike share with close to 1500 stations and 20,000 bikes throughout the city.
• Veligo - electric cargo bike library for residents
  

PEER TO PEER BIKE SHARE

• List N Ride
  

CARGO / FAMILY BIKE RENTAL SHOP

• Welgo - family e-cargobikes including Tern, Yuba and Urban Arrrow for rent.

• Holland Bikes - Dutch adult, child and bakfiets for rent

• Paris à Vélo - mountain, road, tandem, cargo, trailers and child seats

Tours

+ Eats, Drinks and Sights (click to open)

Our favorite places in Paris to...

EAT

• Copains Gluten Free Bakery - As someone who travels and tries every single gluten bakery along the way, Copains is one of the best. It is pricey but worth it.
  
• Breizh Cafe - I can't tell you how good this meal. Each dish lasted about 3 minutes on the table - our families' forks were a-flying.
  
• Tasca - Our wide eyes say it all. Holy cow was this one of the best dedicated gluten free italian restaurants we have dined in. We started the day with a walk up the Eiffel Tower and came to Tasca for lunch. Be sure to get a reservation!
  
• Café des Deux Moulins - Right before our trip to Paris, we watching Amelie with our daughter and it had a huge effect on her. Her eyes brightened as we discovered all the movie landmarks in Montmarte, especially this cafe.
  
  
• Wild & the Moon - For anyone needing a gut reset on your travels, Wild & the Moon as plenty to offer and it's location in a quiet courtyard makes for a great place to reset the senses.
  

WANDER

• Square du Vert-Galant - An island peninsula that made our top 5 list. I'm not sure if it was because it was outdoors in the middle of the Seine or the bright green Weeping Willow that provides the coolest picnic spot, but this tickled us. Grab some snackies and wine and chill for an hour or two.
  
• Tunnel des Tuileries - Biking through the Tunnel des Tuileries is a top 5 experience for our family. It was converted from a one-way vehicle tunnel to car-free in 2016 and in 2022, lighting was installed and street artists were commissioned to paint frescos. If you are lucky like we were, musicians like a violinist will serenade your ride.
  
  
• Eiffel Tower - Let me preface this with the fact that I usually avoid tourist hotspots like the plague. We booked tickets for an early morning on a Friday and naturally chose the stairs over the elevators. There was zero line for the stairs and the elevator line crossed the plaza twice. We walked up and were by ourselves at the cafe on the first tier, which was slammed on our way down from the top. The architecture and small details were astounding and then you have the view. I loved walking all the way up and around.
  
• Montmarte Neighborhood - For amazing views of the city - be prepared to climb - and for Amelie fans who will immediately identify the film locations.
  
• Île Saint-Germain - Île Saint-Germain is an island that was formerly a military base, but in 1980 it turned half public park, half housing and offices. It provided a destination for us to have a longer ride in the city.
  

DRINK

• Le Flore en l'Île - If you visit Notre Dame, be sure to bike around behind the cathedral and across the bridge to this perfect outdoor Parisian cafe. We were seated right away, mama got a cider, dad got a Belgian beer and our daughter got a hot chocolate.
  
  
• La Binouze - Such a beer nerd lounge. We travel to a lot of cities and seek out the local bottle shop - La Binouze is a lovely local's hangout and located in one of our favorite neighborhoods in Paris. I believe they also had cider / cidre for GF folks like me.
  
• La Cidrerie du Canal - Aptly named cidery on the Canal Saint-Martin with a very large selection of ciders in an old pub atmosphere.
  

SHOP

• SHOPTAPÉPITE vintage - Montmarte was our favorite neighborhood for vintage finds - we could have spent $1000 in this one. The owner has great curation taste and I loved their interior design choices.
  
• Flash Vintage - We could have spent a lot more time in this shop but our bellies were calling for food.
  

+ Hotels (click to open)

Hotel

25hours Hotel Paris Terminus Nord
Address: 12 Bd de Denain, 75010 Paris, France
Phone: +33 1 42 80 82 00
25hours was a perfect launchpad for our 2-wheeled wanderings. We mostly used our own bikes but they did have a fleet of awesome loaner bikes that we used to go out to dinner.

Amenities: onsite restaurant, next to a major train station, fleet of bikes to borrow

+ Transportation (click to open)

CITY TRANSIT

Paris Metro (Map / Bikes Policy)

Airport to Downtown

Take the RER B Line from Charles de Gaulle for about 13 euros one-way; kids under 4 are free; kids 4-10 years old are 50% rate

Bikes on the Metro Policy

"Due to lack of space, carrying your bike on the metro, bus and tram networks or the Montmartre funicular is not allowed."

TRAIN

EUROSTAR VIA SNCF - London to Paris

Bikes on Eurostar Policy

"You can book a space for your bike by emailing travelservices@eurostar.com. This service is currently limited to selected trains between London, Paris, and Brussels, so please book early to avoid disappointment.

We can only transport fully assembled bikes on trains travelling between London and Brussels. If you’re travelling between London and Paris, your bike must be disassembled and in a box or bag when you drop it off."

RAIL EUROPE

• Eurail Global Pass - good for train service between 33 countries
• France Pass - good for unlimited travel within France

Bikes on European Trains

"Bike transport by train is possible on many European trains, but each rail operator has a different policy and bike transportation charges may vary. Some accept fully assembled bikes, but many require that you dismantle the bike and store it in a bike bag. "

• British Airways- FREE for bikes under 23kg or 50lbs in a protective box or bag 190 X 75 X 65cm; must call 72 hours in advance to confirm bike reservation.
• Delta- FREE for bikes under 23kg or 50lbs in a protective box or bag under 62 linear inches or 158 centimeters.
• JetBlue - FREE for bikes under 23kg or 50lbs in a protective box or bag under 62 linear inches or 292 centimeters.
• Qatar - "Can you bring a bike on a plane? Of course you can. Taking a bike on a plane is easy with Qatar Airways, as long as it fits within the guidelines and dimensions of your checked baggage allowance"
• Virgin Atlantic - FREE for bikes under 23kg or 50lbs in a protective box or bag.