Paris Moped Tour: 3 Hours to Explore Secret Parisian Villages

Looking for an original way to visit Paris? This article is for travelers looking for a lesser-known way to explore the city, and for Parisians who want to discover hidden facets of their home city.

I recently experienced Paris in a very original way thanks to Paris en Mobylette: through a 3-hour guided tour, my friends and I explored the remaining traces of former villages in Paris riding vintage Peugeot 103 mopeds we had never driven before! It was a great experience, especially with a passionate historian guiding us and sharing plenty about Paris.

Riding a Moped Through Paris’s Secret Villages

The tour we chose took us through former working-class villages in southern Paris, now fully integrated into the city. They are scattered across the 13th and 14th arrondissements, with sometimes only a few peaceful streets remaining. Although they look like rich city villas today, imagine they were working-class housing in the early 19th century. They could be home to butchers, leather workers, ironmongers… so many people that the central city needed in order to function. But as those areas became officially part of Paris in 1860, the working class was gradually pushed outside the city, and the rising bourgeoisie took over these village-like houses.

Today, they are discreet, charming streets that very few to almost no tourists come to visit, as they’re mostly off the classic tourist itineraries. But they’re really among my favourite places to show whenever my friends come to visit Paris. I love their village-like touch, the cuteness of the small houses with private gardens and beautiful flowerbeds. Going through these cobblestone streets allows us to take a break from the bustling city. Nobody would imagine finding this kind of quiet, picturesque place right in the middle of Paris’s bigger buildings!

Driving a moped was a real advantage here since those villages are scattered over several arrondissements, so you’d really need either to walk a lot or take several buses to connect between them, should you want to visit them all at once. The moped let us get between them quickly, and the ride itself was very enjoyable thanks to the itineraries our guide chose.

Luca always made a point of passing through quiet, pretty streets that, even after 15 years of living in those areas, I had never seen! We went through the Buttes-aux-Cailles, the Montsouris area, and a few other places I won’t reveal here so you can be surprised when you book this tour, but we also connected with famous monuments like the Pantheon!

We learned a lot about these less-visited, lesser-known areas, which are mainly residential. At a few stops, Luca showed us on his tablet what these areas used to look like and explained the history of Paris. We could clearly see how urban development transformed the city into what it is today.

A Nostalgic Ride on Vintage Moped Wheels

As we were all born in or after the 90s, none of us had ever ridden such mopeds before. They were very popular in the 1960s. We met many older people every once in a while when we stopped to listen to Luca’s historical explanations, and about a dozen of them commented on the mopeds or asked us questions, telling us that they used to ride them when they were younger! We could feel their nostalgia, and it brought back very fond memories. This really added a great human touch to our tour.

Luca’s idea stemmed from a very practical need: having fixed a few vintage mopeds by passion, he realised they needed to be ridden regularly to be maintained! Having studied history and being curious about discovering the anecdotes behind the city we live in, he didn’t need long before finding the right idea: why not organise guided tours by moped? That’s how Paris en Mobylette was born.

The mopeds are now powered by electric batteries, so driving them is super easy: you just need to power them on and accelerate with the hand accelerator. So there’s no need to pedal! After testing and getting used to our mopeds in a back alley to make sure everyone was comfortable, we set off on our guided tour! With our helmets and gloves on (safety first!), it was really fun to ride autonomously on Paris’ streets, and we were lucky to have great weather on our side.

So if you’re looking for a unique activity in Paris, a guided tour like no other or simply the occasion to try those vintage mopeds, Luca’s tours are for you. Enjoy your ride!

Paris Moped Tour: Practical information