What do you reckon is the best way to discover a new city? The car certainly isn’t the way to go. While having to concentrate on the road, chances are you’ll miss a lot of what’s going on around you. Moreover, you’ll have to find a parking spot at some point and we all know that’s easier said than done in a busy city center. So, we can all agree the car isn’t a real option, but what about public transportation? Well, it’s certainly handier and if you choose wisely (opt for the bus and tram instead of the metro) you can indeed spot a good part of the city. However, you can’t just hop off whenever you want and you’ll certainly drive by a ton of interesting places without even noticing.
If neither of the options above are up your street, you’re left with two scenarios. Either you discover a city by bike or by foot. And depending on how big the city is, they’re both more than valid. You’ll have the chance to stop whenever you want, you can get into streets no car or bus would ever be able to fit into and you’ll have no difficulties finding a parking spot. Perfect, isn’t it? But when you’re deciding which of those two options to choose from, it’s important to be aware of your destination.
Having tried to discover Berlin by foot, for example, I can tell you with all my heart: don’t do it. It’s simply too big, too spread out. At the end of the day you won’t have seen very much yet your feet will hurt big time. Here, the bike certainly is the better way of transportation. Motel One somehow did the opposite of my little experiment and tried to find out which cities are walkable indeed. In order to come up with a list, they looked at the most popular attractions within European tourist destinations and then calculated how much time it would take you to discover them by foot.
