Are Parisians grumpy about Paris?
The guide for our Charming Nooks and Crannies Paris bicycle tour is named Romeo. And he’s Italian.
I asked him how a guy from the Dolomites ended up leading Paris cycle tours. He smiled and said “Parisians are too grumpy about their city” to be good guides.
I pursued the topic no further.
For more than three hours our small group wound its way through narrow streets, even narrower alleys and some of the City of Light’s most historic neighborhoods, as we were invited to:
“Discover the medieval Marais and its famous Gay & Jewish neighborhoods, the first Kings squares, the islands, the literary Saint Germain des Prés and its cafés, the trendy Odeon, the Luxemburg garden or the Latin Quarter and its most dangerous middle-aged back streets.
In case you haven’t figured it out: I’m Ron Cunningham and I recommend this tour.
We were shown a cafe that, in the 15th Century, played host to the radicals who would usher in the French Revolution (and the ensuing Reign Of Terror).
And we cycled along the Seine on a road that had previously been reserved exclusively for the use of cars.
Listen, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it’ll say it again.
The best way to see an unfamiliar city is to do so on a bicycle. And so I cycled Paris just as I have cycled London, Edinburgh, Montreal, San Francisco, Florence, Moscow, St. Petersburg and other great cities.
And I have never been disappointed in my two-wheeled urban explorations.
But I had especially been looking forward to cycling Paris, having read so much about the determination of its mayor, Anne Hildigo, to make Paris cycling safe and enjoyable again. This after the bicycle all but disappeared in Paris beginning the 1960s, when motor traffic began to take over the streets.
It hasn’t been an easy transition. “Parisians love the mayor” for making cycling popular in Paris,” Romeo said. ”And Parisians hate the mayor” for the same reason.
Indeed, the satirist P.J. O’Rouke once wrote, grumpily: “Bike lanes violate a fundamental principle of democracy. We, the majority who do not ride bicycles, are being forced to sacrifice our left turns, parking places and chances to squeeze by delivery trucks so that an affluent elite can feel good about itself for getting wet, cold, tired and run-over. Our tax dollars are being used to subsidize our annoyance.”
Truth is, you can’t make a city, any city, bicycle and pedestrian friendly without putting cars in their place. Without restricting them in some places and slowing them down in others.
In anticipation of hosting the Olympics this year, Paris vowed to make every Olympic venue accessible by bicycle. “We won’t be ready” otherwise, Mayor Hildigo said.
Not having been here for the games, I can’t say how “ready” Paris was for cycling. But I do know that bicycles are not exclusively reserved for O’Rourke’s “affluent elite.”
For instance, E-bike cargo and delivery vans are everywhere in the city. I even saw a service technician for one of the bike share companies show up to assist a rider with her flat tire.
It’s no exaggeration to say that micro-mobility has arrived in Paris in a big way.
Talk about a revolution! But this one arrives without a side of terror.
What a cool, free wheeling town is Paris.
FreeGNV 