Paris: Evening Lights Cruise with Legendary Bateaux-Mouches

Every Bateaux-Mouches sailing leaves from the company's own pier at Pont de l'Alma, on the Right Bank of the Seine. The address is Port de la Conference, 75008 Paris, in the 8th arrondissement, a few minutes' walk from the Alma-Marceau metro station on line 9 and from the Pont de l'Alma RER C stop. There is no other Bateaux-Mouches boarding point in the city, so if a map sends you to the Eiffel Tower quay you are at the wrong operator's pier.

Look for the low glass-roofed boats moored on the riverside below the road, with the Bateaux-Mouches name across the terminal building. Boarding opens shortly before departure and it is worth arriving around 20 minutes early in summer, because the pier queue builds quickly even for passengers who already hold a ticket. Your mobile ticket is scanned at the gangway.

The evening lights cruise runs for 70 minutes to 1.5 hours depending on the option you book and on river traffic. That is long enough to make the full loop past the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay, the Conciergerie, Notre-Dame and the Eiffel Tower, and short enough to slot into an evening before or after dinner.

The timing that matters most is the light. Aim for a departure that puts you on the water as dusk turns to dark, because that is when the monuments switch on and the river turns into the postcard version of Paris. The Eiffel Tower sparkles for five minutes on the hour after nightfall, so a sailing that has you mid-river on the hour is the one to pick. In midsummer that means a late slot, since it does not get properly dark in Paris until close to 10pm; in autumn and winter an early evening departure does the same job.

Prices start from €18, which makes this one of the cheapest ways to see illuminated Paris. If you would rather eat on board, the Bateaux Mouches dinner cruise on the Seine uses the same pier at a higher price point, and our guide to which Seine river cruise is worth it compares every option side by side.