Finally made it to Paris

As I mentioned before in another post, Paris is very pleasant city to do biking, but the banlieue, that is, the outskirts of Paris, is perhaps even better. I actually live in Antony, to the southern part of the banlieue near to the airport of Orly (not Charles de Gaule to the north of Paris). Nearby there is a very long and beautiful passage for bicycles that connects Paris and Massy-Palaiseau, called la coullee verte.

I usually use the coullee verte when I go by bike to Polytechnique, which is further to the south. However, it was not until today that I used this way to go to Paris. I really liked the way, though it sometimes lacks adequate signs to guide the bikers to the correct directions (I actually got the wrong track twice). The part that connects Antony and the beginning of Paris is very fun, since the landscape is nice and especially because you do not have to stop in the crossing that often. However, when you reach near Paris things begin to change. The landscape is no longer green but filled with ugly buildings and worst, you sometimes have to wait for some minutes at the crossings until the traffic lights turn green.

Besides theses inconveniences, I think the path is overall very pleasant and I leave the recommendation.

Does anyone work in May?

Because of the presence of so many holidays, May is certainly a very unusual month in Europe. For instance, we are approaching the middle of the month and until now we had three holidays from which two coincidently fell on a Thursday resulting on a total of five holidays. Counting also the weekends, people actually worked only for three days!

Not that I am complaining, but since people have their vacations now in July and August, I begin to question the saying we have in Brazil that Brazilians have too many holidays. There are definitely less than in any European country.

P.S.: In France, things get even better. Here people already have every Friday afternoon free because of their 35 hours journey. (Vive la France:)

Velib Experience

In the past year, Paris has been transformed into a biking town, what I would call the Velib phenomena. Everywhere, you can see these little bike stations from where you can grab a bike, called Velib, ride for a while and leave it any other free station. Since Paris is relatively small, with good metro system, and not having many slopes, Velib has turned out into a huge success.

Finally this past weekend, me and Andrea took the courage to rent two Velibs and for merely one Euro each, we could have it for the whole day. I should also add that we were a bit lucky with the weather; it was a sunny warm afternoon. Soon after you begin riding the bike, you can notice its strength and that it is a bit heavy, but very comfortable. I enjoyed a lot going near the Seine by bike and now that summer is coming, I think the Parisien streets will be full of them.