Cycling round Vienna

I fell completely in love with Vienna, with it's beauitiful architecture, and stylish attention to detail. It has a sense of purposeful contentment - it feels a bit like a more civilised and less pretentious Paris, with an overall feeling of calm self-acceptance. Vienna must offer more public transport options than any other city in Europe, with Metro, trams, buses, horses and carts, Segways, and bikes all weaving in and out of each other with a measured and delicate precision, less like the chaos of Cairo or London, than a carefully choreographed waltz. On my second day in the city I made a delightful discovery that in a way quite literally changed how I saw the city for the next few days. Vienna has free bikes. Yup, free as in free beer. Actually, that's not entirely true, - you do have to pay an initial Euro registration fee, and the time consuming registration process is taxing enough to deter all my the most determined cyclists. However, once the process is complete, with a quick swipe of a credit card and the entry of your password onto the touchscreen terminal, you are able to select the ride of your choice from the electronically secured rack, and ride it gratuit for 1 hour, before returning it the another "City Bike" station, where, after a 15 minute rest, you can pick up another brightly coloured bike to continue your tour of the city. Longer sojourns are charged from a very reasonable one Euro, but as long as you watch the time and insure the bike is returned before the free period expires, you can happy explore the entire city for free over as long as you like.

Having logged on, I selected my new steed with some trepidation, no doubt compounded by a slightly foggy head from the night before. Not being a regular cyclist, at first I lurched alarmingly from side so side, as I hesitantly joined the fast moving stream of cyclists on Vienna's extensive but confusing cycle-routes. My lack of control was compounded by the puzzling breaking system, by which the bike could be slowed by pedaling backwards. I found that I had to fight from allowing myself to hang back on the pedals, inadvertently lurching the contraption to a stop at inconvenient moments such as mid junction. However, as I learned the machines idiosyncrasies I gained confidence, and was soon speeding down the leafy boulevards with a wide boyish grin on my face, or panting up narrow side streets, only to freewheel carelessly down the other side, the sights of Vienna whistling past me. In two days I'm confident that I saw more of the city than I would have by any other means, certainly more cheaply, but also felt more engaged with the ebb and flow of city life. I felt a genuine sense of sadness when eventually I left my final bike in the rack, and returned to my hostel to pack for my next adventure.