With our fifth day in Paris looking like another museum day, we arranged to visit the next rainy day activity on our list, a trip to the Centre Pompidou, the famous museum of modern art, designed in the high-tech style by the team of Richard Rogers, Su Rogers and Renzo Piano.

Opening in 1977, the Pompidou houses Europe’s largest collection of modern art, though it’s now closed until 2030 as a 5 year renovation is underway. Fortunately, as we were there in 2024, we were able to enjoy a day at the museum before it closed.

Despite visiting a Paris a few times previously, including a college trip when I was an art student, I’ve never actually been to the Pompidou before, so I was really looking forward to visiting the still futuristic looking museum.

Riding to Place de la Bastille

Before going to the museum, we planned to have a wander round the Bastille and grab some lunch. As usual, I’d be riding there on a Vélib bike share bike, while the others took the Métro. Though rather than taking a direct route, I thought I’d go for a bit of a wander.

Starting at our apartment off Avenue de Clichy, I continued onto Rue Cardinet, then Rue Jouffroy d’Abbans. At the time, Rue Jouffroy d’Abbans was being resurfaced, but there didn’t appear to be any cycling infrastructure to speak of. It was pretty bumpy though.

I then passed through the cobbled roundabout at Place du Maréchal Juin and carried onto Avenue de Villiers, which meant mixing with loads of traffic. Things improved on Boulevards des Maréchaux, where there was kerb-protected cycle lanes, albeit sometimes parked in.

At Place de la Porte Maillot, there was huge amounts of stationary traffic, for the morning peak. Thankfully, there was a decent cycle path, cutting through the traffic, though this ended as I made my way into Bois de Boulogne.

Bois de Boulogne is a large public park in the 16th arrondissement, sitting outside of the Périphérique. It’s the second largest park in Paris, only slightly smaller than the Bois de Vincennes in the east of the city. Both parks were the idea of Emperor Napoleon III, who was taken with London’s Hyde Park, when he was exiled there and thought that the growing city of Paris.

Riding through Bois de Boulogne is little mixed. There’s some good quiet paths through the park, as well as busy roads, with no protection. Strange how people think it’s perfectly fine to have busy roads running through parks.

There are some nice features in Bois de Boulogne, which I didn’t really have the time to stop and look at, plus the weather was pretty deary and I didn’t fancy hanging round. Leaving the park, I crossed the Périphérique again and made my way along Avenue Henri Martin.

Most of the way along Avenue Henri Martin featured a narrow kerb-protected cycle lane, that looks like it’s been there a while, certainly the rounded kerb looks quite old. Regardless, it did provide reasonable protection on a busy road.

From there, I made my way past Musée de l’Homme in a wand-protected cycle lane, stopped off at Passy station to watch the Métro trains cross the Seine, then made my way along the Seine up to Place de l’Alma.

The traffic was at a complete standstill at Place de l’Alma, with police struggling to direct the traffic and keep the vehicles moving. Clearly, there’s still some way to get people out of their cars in Paris.

I crossed the Seine at Pont de l’Alma and made my way along the Left Bank, riding in the decent bidirectional cycle lane that follows the river along here. I then returned to the Right Bank and made my way to the Tunnel des Tuileries.

Once a busy expressway through the centre of Paris, the Tunnel des Tuileries is now a fantastic walking and cycling route along the Seine. I enjoyed riding along the tunnel so much, I ended up doing it three times!

After my third ride along the tunnel, I made made towards Place de la Bastille, making use of more really good bidirectional cycle lanes on the way. From there, I docked by Vélib bike and went for coffee as I waited for the others to arrive.

Wandering round

After meeting up with the others, we went for a wander round Marché Bastille, the local market that’s on every Thursday and Sunday.

We grabbed a light lunch here, which we realised was a mistake, when we saw the food options at Marché couvert des Enfants Rouges. Oh well, maybe next time.

To console ourselves, we stopped off at Crêperie Gigi for some fantastic crêpes as we avoided another shower. From there, we made our way over to Centre Pompidou.

At the Centre Pompidou

Arriving at the Pompidou, we made our way up the building, using the escalators you can see snaking up the side. While the Rogers and Piano’s exterior is a distinctive sight on the Paris landscape, its interior is just as fascinating.

At the top of the Pompidou, we were able to see close-up some of the architectural details high up in the building, as well the rooftop space used for displaying sculpture. We were also able to enjoy some amazing views of Paris.

While we were keen to look round the permanent collection, we were keen to look at the Comics (1964 – 2024) exhibition that was on at the time. Now I can’t say I’m a particularly keen reader of comics or graphic novels, but I did enjoy looking round the huge amount of creativity on show.

After the Comics (1964 – 2024) exhibition, we made our way round the permanent collection, which includes a huge selection of many of the big name artists you’d expect from such a prestigious museum of modern art.

We really enjoyed our visit to the Pompidou and were glad to go there before it closes for renovation. I’d recommend going there, but you’ll need to wait a few years, before you get opportunity to go.

Riding to Mikkeller Bar Paris

Things had brightened up during our time at the Pompidou, so we came out to a sunny evening and were keen to make the most of it. With Mikkeller Bar Berlin being one of our favourite bars, we were keen to give the Mikkeller Bar Paris a go.

Jumping on another Vélib bike, I made my way there, as the others took public transport. This gave me more opportunity to experience more good quality cycling infrastructure, which was busy on this early evening.

I have to say Mikkeller Bar Paris didn’t disappoint. We got to sample some really lovely beers, while sitting out in the sunny evening on some very chilled Paris streets.

The beer gave us a bit of an appetite, so we set off to find something to eat. We found a popular kebab shop nearby, Chez Cleopatre, where we enjoyed some tasty kebabs, before jumping on the Métro back to our Airbnb.