The Joy of Cycling in Paris - An Homage to Vélib...

Vélib is a merge of the French words for bike – Vélo and freedom - liberté .  And it truly is freedom on your bike! 

And  I can tell this because I recently enjoyed a week in Paris, a wonderful romantic week – for one!   

It was meant to be a romantic week for two, but Romeo H. could not come.  So I ended up travelling to Paris alone.  And it could not have been better!   Paris looked beautiful, the weather obliged and I almost never got off my bike!

Or, to be more precise, I never got off one of the 17,000 bikes that one can pick up from any of the 1,230 depots around the city of Paris.  This thanks to Mon. Jean –Claude Decaux whose advertising company has funded the purchase and maintenance of the Vélib bikes since the program started there in 2007.     

 

- Will somebody please give Mon. Decaux  a nice big French ´embrace´ for me!  Or one better, a nice bowl of lovely fish stew, like the one I ate in a small restaurant I discovered out cycling. 

Bike pickups /drop offs are now available in several cities around the world.  And they really are a great way to get around.  Frankly in suitable weather there is no better way to get around a bike friendly safe city anywhere in the world.

For bike people this is simply a no brainer; this system has all the pluses and none of the minuses of cycling in a big city; there are no issues with bringing your own bike with you on holiday, or of carrying your bike up and down steps, or on and off the subway.   

....And most of all no worries about your bike getting stolen; you simply pick up a bike at a pick up point near you, cycle to where every  you want to go and leave you bike at the drop off point there.  And for non-bike people Paris could be a good place to fall in love… with cyling!

 

In homage to Paris on my Vélib I am showing photos from two of my favorite days Vélib-ing around Paris.  As this will make for lots of words and lots of photos I will divide the blog posting into two parts.  See how many locations you know.  On the next blog posting, I will give more details on places shown in the photos

And the next day.....

Full disclousure:  I did not stop and go into these buildings when I was cyling by.  I took the pictures of the interiors of these buildings on days it was too wet to enjoy cycling.

And for something completely different......

And then I dropped off my Vélib and took a train ......

                                                  




So after another long day on my Vélib.  Heading home to bed.

A letter to the Irish Times about Bertie in Bertieland.

Note the letter mentioned in this blog posting may be understood by those keeping up with the banking inquiry in Ireland.  

To those not, esp. people who are not Irish or who do not follow  what goes on in Ireland and very especially  my English students in Germany: -  DO NOT even try to understand.  

This is a letter I wrote to the Irish Times in response to Bertie´s ´not know´en noth´in about noth´en´ at the banking inquiry.   Full disclosure - it was not printed!

Banking decisions not my responsibility - Bertie Ahern.

To the Editor,

Well I felt a bit like Alice in Bertieland reading that Bertie Ahern opined that Banking Decisions were not his responsibility.   Bertie however ´ admitted his Government took chances, such as allowing too much tax revenue to come from construction.´

           

 No doubt due in part to what he says was  “the overwhelming advice from experts - that “we would not get the kind of hit that we did”.´    Which experts? When?

I am puzzled; as a housekeeper in New York during the build up and the later implosion of the Irish economy, I was privy to far less information than Bertie.  But I was concerned as far back as 2006.  And why?    Arriving in to Dublin from New York sometime in 2006, I counted 63 very tall cranes on the Dublin skyline.  – There were more, but I lost count after 63.  I knew enough to know Ireland with our small population could not support more cranes on Dublin´s skyline than could be seen on the Manhattan skyline.  That simple. 

If I could see what was coming down the line working away as I was in in New York City.  I have to ask how could Bertie - who during this time was Taoiseach for eleven years and Finance Minister for three, NOT see what was coming?

 Bertie in effect saying he had not any sense or even a vaguely accurate clue as to what was going on with the economy, with the flawed building boom - or with the banks  during this time is, frankly not credible.  -  His saying it is  gives me the same bad bad feeling I had when I read reports in July 1997 that another former Taoiseach,  this time C.J.,  told the McCracken Tribunal ”My work was my life. There was no room for an extravagant lifestyle. ”

I am wondering if things would have been clearer back then in Bertieland, if Bertie had had his very own bank account?
Sincerely,

....

Böhler´s Garden is a little corner of heaven. And all are welcome!

The pictures below come from Böhler´s garden on the Island of Reichenau in Lake Konstanz.

The garden is a labour of love created over years by Herr und Frau Böhler.  

And all of us can visit it.  For free!

I think you dear reader will agree, it is truly a corner of heaven.

Please enjoy.....

 

Sadly Herr Böhler died in 2013.

The bench here is set in the garden to honour his memory.

The Böhler´s grown son now helps his mother tend to the garden.

The Böhlers welcome all to their garden - asking only a small donation should one wish to, to go towards the garden´s upkeep.

I have blogged about this garden before. But I think readers will concur that it truly is worth another visit!