Amsterdam is perhaps the best large city in the world for bicycling and bicyclists. It probably is, but Copenhagen is also always in the running. Furthermore, there are better bicycling cities than Amsterdam in the Netherlands, but they are smaller, so I’m not sure if they are in the same class. Anywho, if you haven’t …
Obviously, we’re big fans of bikes here. I realized several years ago that the common line and piece of advice “stop to smell the roses” matched bicycle transportation excellently. You see and smell and appreciate so much more on bike than in a car. I’d say that you do less so than on foot, but …
I recently took a short little vacation to Berlin (just about 5-7 hours away by train from where I live). While I had noticed when I visited the first time (2 years ago) that it was a tremendous bike city and put it at #7 in my bike city photo tours series, I didn’t bike around the city on that visit. Additionally, it was rather cold and rainy, so biking wasn’t in full bloom there.
This time around, we (my partner Marika and friend Salah) were set on biking, a bit at least. The weather was nice and our friend got us some bikes. We ended up going on a bike ride that lasted 5 hours or so on our first full day there.
I was just writing earlier on the power of cities and the progressive transportation choices cities can take to turn the world around (environmentally, economically, and otherwise). Looking at this from a different (and perhaps more negative) angle, IBM recently released a global “Commuter Pain Study.”
Topping yet another bicycle list, Amsterdam is #1 here because of the great bicycle photos to follow along with the fact that 40% of traffic is bicycle traffic in Amsterdam and the city is full of bicycle facilities, including a 10,000-bicycle parking garage at its train station. Amsterdam may not have as high a percentage …
#1 Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Great Bicycle City Photo Tour Read More »
