A Breath of Fresh Air

On Sundays they close many of the streets in the Marais, including the one where we live. They have a whole city-wide programme of closures called “Paris Respire”, literally meaning “Paris Breathes”. On certain streets cars are banned and pedestrians, cyclists and roller skaters are given free reign. In practice near us this generally means that the roads become blocked with people milling about, having leisurely Sunday conversations in great giggling groups, whilst the car drivers who have managed to persuade the police manning the barriers that they have a genuine need to drive through the blockade edge slowly past, scared and frustrated expressions fixed on their faces. It is possible to pick up a Vélib and potter about the local streets, past the National Archives and round the narrow lanes with alarmingly crooked overhanging buildings, taking in the neat courtyards and little garden squares as you pass. You don't pick up any degree of momentum, though, or get anywhere particularly fast. You stop and start, ringing your bell and trying to be polite but firm with your “excusez moi” and “pardon” as you try to weave your heavy mount through the crowds.

If you want sheer cycling romance then nothing really beats crossing one of the old, cobbled bridges across the river to the islands. You can pause briefly at the bridge's curved summit and look down at the sunlight dancing on the water, before bouncing down the gentle slope to the steeply banked waterside roads of the Île St. Louis. Here there is some traffic to contend with, mainly taxis on a Sunday morning, but the roads are not wide enough to be driven along at speed, so the pace remains relaxed and you don't generally feel intimidated. I like to think that I become something of a curiosity to the rich, luggage-laden tourists in the backs of the cabs, me riding the sturdy Vélib with my mass of thick, wavy hair struggling to break free of my cycle helmet.

The ultimate Sunday Vélib treat, however, is to go right down by the Seine onto the smooth, fast tarmac usually reserved for cars speeding across the city. The busy quayside highway that takes up the lower part of the riverbank near to the Hôtel de Ville and the Place du Châtelet is reserved for non-motorised traffic from the morning until five in the afternoon. A substantial chunk of road is available for people-powered transport, joggers and promenaders. It is a popular spot, with everyone from kids on wobbly trikes to roller bladers dressed in head to toe, aerodynamic lycra taking advantage of this opportunity to just play by the riverside. The cordoned off sliproads down to the quays are steep, so you can freewheel down and let yourself loose onto the road with a flying start, racing under the bridges and easily outrunning the gently meandering boats that are your neighbours. Keeping a careful eye out for your fellow road revellers doesn't preclude the chance to absorb the more grand sights around you – the Pont Neuf up ahead or the Conciergerie, with its current cloak of scaffolding, across the gentle swell and bubble of the Seine's waves, so close beside you as you cycle along.

This Sunday we had friends staying with us and introducing them to the Vélibs was a wonderful way of showing them this place that has become our city. Paris, in all her glory, opening up one of the main thoroughfares of her bustling centre to enable it to be more fully admired, as well as providing original transport to augment the experience. Like schoolchildren we jostled to overtake each other, laughing as we got to grips with the eccentricities of Vélib steering, out in the sunshine by the Seine. As we parked the bikes the sun had disappeared behind a cloud and we returned to the more sedate pace of walking. Whether we're on two wheels or on two feet, though, these are our streets now. Filled with cars or filled with people, these are the cobbles that pave our home town. Paris and the spirit of freedom, so encompassed in the Vélib and the whole programme of “Paris Respire” Sunday street closures, has taken hold of my husband and I, and I don't think that it will ever let us go.