Velib'

The Mairie de Paris has scored a big hit with its new bike rental scheme. It costs 1 euro for half an hour, then 2 euros for every extra half hour until you reach 3 hours. Then it's 4 euros every half hour. So the incentive is to take short rides - to actually use them to get somewhere rather than hire them for the day. When you get to your destination, you just check the bike back in to another velib' station. Apparently the recent Metro strike forced a lot of people to try them, and now they're everywhere. The pictures below are from the isle st louis velib' park


Velibs with the hotel de ville in the background


The first rule of velib' club is: no riding on the pavement.

Four

Today's mission was to travel outside the Boulevard periphique (eek!) to retrieve Jenny's electric oven (le four) for use in our flat. She stored it in the cave of a rotary contact when she left Paris. We took round a small bouquet of roses to thank the guardian of the four for her trouble, and had a coffee and a nice chat with her in her very impressive duplex appartment, with two large terasses and a view of the tour eiffel.

Getting the four back on the metro involved a fair amount of effort, but we made it and it's now safely installed on the luge that inexplicably forms part of the furniture in our flat. We'll try and work out some better place to put it tomorrow.