Paris roller

If you want to get a unique view of Paris streets and neighbourhoods I have found the best way-on rollerblades.

The group 'rollers & coquillages' have created a huge following for their Sunday afternoon randonees through Paris. Yesterday I joined in.

You can rent your blades for under 10euro from Nomades in Place de Bastille for a half day or full day. And don't worry- they have plenty for hire!

The tour starts at 2.30 from outside of the shop and we set off in a pack of about 2000 crazy rollerbladers and a couple on skates !! And it's totally free.

We headed along the Seine on the right bank, past all the famous sites- the Louvre, Pont Alexandre III, Tuileries, The Eiffel Tower and crossed to head up towards Tour Montparnasse and then back through St Germain, St Michel and back to Bastille.

Sounds easy-?

Well it's not. For me, as a new found beginner, as in I haven't had a pair of rollerblades on my feet for over 8 years, the hardest thing was stopping! Every 10 minutes or so we would all stop in a group to get the stragglers back to the speedys at the front. And sometimes that stop was at the bottom of the hill. Lucky I could just hold onto my friend while he stopped and I dragged along. And the cobbled streets on old Paris are not so easy to roll across.

Altogether the trip was about 20km, almost 3 hours, and very hard work.

But the thing that really impressed me allowing a group of people on rollerblades to take over the city on a Sunday. Roads were shut down, traffic stopped and major intersections at a stand still just so we could have a leisurely blade through the city. What other city would allow such a thing? Of course there were a lot of beeping horns as we rolled past, but overall onlookers were impressed.

'Allez-y les rollers'! They would call as we went by.

And I should mention for bragging rights- I didn't fall over once. (But if I had, there's a convoy of red cross ambulances following the group as well as plenty of staff on hand with bandages, water and water pistols to cool the crowd.)

Every week they change the route, so check out this site for all the details. Have fun! http://www.rollers-coquillages.org/