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France goes smoke free
You probably know that France went smoke-free on January 2nd 2008.
Obviously not everybody is happy about it, but that's the way it is. From now on, smoking in bars, clubs, cafes and restaurants is forbidden.
Thus, smokers who want to light up while patronizing one of these places have to leave their drinks inside and go outside to have a cigarette. As you might imagine, 20 people smoking outside not only creates more street noise, it also is resulting in a greater amount of litter on the sidewalks and in the streets.
To encourage a cleaner and quieter approach to outdoor smoking, the city of Paris has come up with several ads that are worth checking out.
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- So are you coming?
- Nah, forget it, I'm not
allowed to go out with you. |
- Hahahha this party was too much!
- You’re the one who was too much.
The neighbors are going to kill us! |
- You got thrown out too?
- Yeah ... even though I was right next to the ashtray. |
An easy and cheap way to get around within Paris
The city of Paris is deploying a vast network of bicycles that will be available for rent.
It's called
Velib', which is an amalgam of the French words for bicycle and freedom: “vélo” and “liberté”.
The first 30 minutes are free. The next 30 minutes are 1€ and the next 1 hour is 2€, so the prices are quite affordable.
You can pick up a bike and drop it back off wherever you want. The bikes are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Bike stations are popping up all over the city, so you are bound to find one near you.
This project has already been set up in other cities such as Lyon and is soon to be implemented in Aix-en-Provence and Marseille as well.
At each of these pick-up and drop-off points you can rent a bike, consult a user’s manual and a map.
The Metro will be waiting for you
Starting on December 7th 2007,
the metro service will be extended by one hour on Friday nights, setting the time of the last available train at its terminus at 2.15 am, compared with the present 1.15 am closing time.
This schedule will be identical to that on Saturdays and celebration days that benefit from the extension of service since December 2006.
These evenings, service is enhanced with a metro average every five minutes from 9 pm and every ten minutes after 12.30 am.
The STIF believes that the results of the traffic "show the interest of Ile-de-France inhabitants for these new schedules, evaluating averaged 37,000 entries in the metro network between 1.15 am and 2.15 am, while the evening traffic has increased by 69,000 trips on average compared to 2006.
Choose a great Paris location for your hotel stay.
