French revolutions
Travelling around northern France by boat is to experience the region as its loveliest: days spent idling along tree-lined waterways and nights spent moored in quiet villages, falling asleep to the slosh of the current. The downside is that you only get to see so much, travelling at a maximum speed of 4mph. Tour operator UTracks has hit upon an ingenious solution to this problem. Its new ‘Bike and Barge to Paris’ tour allows the best of two worlds, following the course of the Seine and Oise with pedals rather than paddles – participants cycle along country lanes and through shady forests by day, and by night rest saddle-weary bodies aboard a barge. Midway through the trip the boat putters into Paris, mooring up at the Bassin de l’Arsenal, where passengers disembark to explore the City of Lights by bike.
7 With 430 miles of cycling routes, Paris is an ideal city to explore by bike