So today was quite exciting – we went on our bike tour! It was the perfect thing to do at the beginning of our trip as we saw a large part of the city in the almost-4 hours we were riding around. Our tour guide, Paul, was awesome and reportedly the co-founder of the company. We went through the 4th, 5th, 1st, and 12th districts which were all in stark contrast to each other. It really took us into the hidden jewels of Paris that we wouldn’t necessarily find on our own. For example…

The Holocaust Wall This is where men and women from “The Resistance” who helped the Jews escape Hitler are named.

The Holocaust Wall was pretty neat. Our tour guide gave us this whole history of the French and their involvement with WWII – but I won’t bore you with that here. Although interesting fact: Hitler marched his army through the Arc de Triumph when they first came into the city when in fact it was built by Napoleon for his army who (didn’t) win the Battle of Waterloo to march through.

The oldest restaurant in Paris… Has been serving food since 1686. Hopefully not the same food.

The oldest restaurant in Paris was pretty cool and had some portraits of famous people who had eaten there (including Ben Franklin).

This is the place in Ratatouille!!! The story behind it is that this man has been trapping rats (or his family has) for 200+ years in Paris, and he hangs all the rats that he traps in the front of his store to show how great his traps are…hmm…

The rat trap store was pretty cool and gross all at the same time (apologies for the glare). I guess that is one way to show how good your traps are!!! Imagine if everyone started doing that like plumbers who would hang their clogs they got out in front of their store…no one would go in!

Definitely saw this dog on a scooter racing through the 4th district. The best part of this was that the dog stayed on for the entire ride - even when he stopped!