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Bateau means boat and mouche means fly, in French. The name comes from the fact that back in the 19th century the first tourist boats used to dock in a sector of the Seine swarming with flies during the summer. Both the Seine and the boats have changed since then.
The boats have become a celebrated symbol of Parisian tourism. The boats, which seat hundreds of people, provide an open upper deck as well as an enclosed lower deck. A tour guide is present and offers an audio account of the sites in multiple languages. For those visitors who wish to the lovely sites of Paris with delicious French food, there are some companies that offer lunch and dinner cruises. The boats depart frequently, usually ever 30 minutes or one hour.
Since the Seine is centrally situated in Paris, a one-hour boat tour allows the tourist to see a great deal of the city. Both the Left Bank, or the Rive Gauche, and the Right Bank, or the Rive Droit, are visible from the boat. Passengers can see, among other sites, the celebrated Eiffel Tower, the beautiful Notre Dame, the ornate Alexander III Bridge , and the humongous Louvre Museum. The passengers can also see the Les Invalides, the home of Napoleon's tomb, and La Samaritaine, one of Paris' reputable department stores.
Several companies offer these river tours, which provide the opportunity to see a substantial portion of Paris in a short period of time. The oldest and most famous of these companies is the Bateaux-Mouches Company .