PARIS — An electric delivery boat pushed up the Seine, past the former palaces and elegant museums and under the low-slung stone and metal bridges before turning at the Eiffel Tower and gliding to the riverbank.
The captain, Arnaud Montand, was tracing the planned path for the opening ceremony of next summer’s Olympic Games and, over the last segment of its route, the course for Olympic swimmers.
A key part of Paris’s winning bid was not to host events just on the river but, remarkably, in it.
“What a beautiful window onto Paris,” Montand said from behind the wheel inside his cozy glass cabin, where he was protected from the pelting rain.