On Bicycles, and.... what else is there?

Continuing my description of a recent trip to Paris from Switzerland.... Sunday, however, we abandoned the Metro for the Velib bike-share system. This would have been a far, far better way to get back from Notre Dame. ("a far, far better place..." Sorry.) The Velib system, in contrast to the San Francisco bike share system, made a huge impression on me. First, there was the number of users. A substantial majority of the considerable number of cyclists we saw on the streets of Paris were on Velib bikes. And it made sense. With Velib, there was no reason to worry about locking your bike or returning to your bike after finishing with a destination. You could park it at a station, go do stuff, then move on to a different station closer to your destination and check out another bike. Being somewhat scatter brained my internal alarms were screaming at me "you forgot your bike!" as I'd walk away from where I'd docked the previous one. But of course it wa...

This blog is a bit out of sequence, as what I describe here is two weekends ago. On Friday evening Cara and I took the TGV from Basel to Paris, remarkably (to me) an only 3-hour journey. This is super-easy, way easier than plane travel with its remote airport locations, long lines, body scanners, body-bending coach seats. I did a brisk walk to the Basel train station, can go directly to the train as late as seconds before the precise departure time, and I'm on my way. Cara, wisely, took the Basel tram to the station which runs reliably every 7 minutes. It's all very low-stress, shorter than my friend's San Francisco Bay area commute. With European discount air fares it is more expensive than flying, but you get what you pay for. Flying coach is dehumanizing in comparison. In Paris, we took the Metro from Gare Charles de Gaul to our hotel not far from Le Tour Eiffel. The location was excellent, and for that we paid plenty. The room had a private bathroom, but it ...