Don't hate me because my commute is beautiful

Now that I have my bike back, I've been enjoying biking about town again, when it's not raining. Today I got to do some errands on my bike, on a lovely warm February day, sunny on and off, no rain, which is just about as good as it gets these days.

You know I don't go to my lab every day, but when I do, I bike to a subway station at the foot of the Champs-Elysées by the Grand Palais, lock my bike up and hop on the subway, and then do it in reverse. The route there takes me past the Hôtel de Ville, the Louvre, the Tuilieries, the Place de la Concorde, and Jacques Chirac's house (not that you can really see inside the compound). Then I cross the Champs-Elysées, so that if I weren't keeping an eagle eye out for French drivers I could look to my right and get a great view of the Arc de Triomphe. Then my subway station is right there.

Biking back from the Champs-Elysées is different, because the bike lane I take to get there is only one way. So I have to go down to the river and follow the very inconsistent bike lane along the road there. It starts beautifully, with a view of Invalides and the Eiffel Tower, and a stretch through a tree-lined avenue. Then at Concorde you have to cross the street, and a bit later you cross back and join the bus lane. Eventually the bus lane disappears entirely, and you're on your own in traffic until the Pont Marie, when the new double bike lane starts on the other side of the road.

If traffic is light, this route isn't so bad, but during rush hour, even the bus lane is crowded and slow. I don't like riding around the buses much, so the other day, when I was stuck in traffic just before the Pont Neuf, I started thinking what I could do that would be better. Rue des Francs Bourgeois to the north, with all the fancy stores? Nah, too far, and the traffic wouldn't be much better. The answer was to think outside the rive. The Pont Neuf is right at the tip of the Île de la Cité (where Js and Cn got engaged, a few years back). I crossed the bridge (which has a handy left-turn bike lane) and followed along the road on the opposite (rive gauche) side of the islands. This goes one way the right way, and is very quiet. It includes a bit that goes right past Notre Dame, where I always feel like I'm in a movie. Cue the soundtrack.