Barcelona's free bike program.
While Paris's highly successful Velib bike-sharing program has received the most attention, Barcelona's "Bicing" celebrated its first birthday this week. Launched last year with 1,500 bikes and 100 station, the program now boasts 4,300 bikes, 286 stations, and 130,000 users.The annual subscription fee of €24 lets users take a bike for a maximum of two hours. The first 30 minutes are free, after that, the cost is .30€ for 30 minutes. The small-wheeled, red-and-white bikes are tricked out with baskets, bells, and lights. And the swipe cards used to liberate the bikes from their stands have pretty much eliminated theft.
At this time, a valid Barcelona address is required to enroll. But let's hope that it won't be long before hotels offer Bicing access cards as one of their amenities. Details in Spanish or Catalan are available at http://www.bicing.com
Acts appearing at this year's Festival de Barcelona Grec should be announced in a few week. The festival -- which is Barcelona's summer arts spectacular -- runs from June 1 to August 31, 2008. Past performers have included Joss Stone, Ray Charles, and Mikhail Baryshnikov. And there's always lots of classic music, dance, theater, and Flamenco.
Most concerts take place in the Olympic Stadium, or Teatre Grec and the charming Poble Espanyol, built for the 1929 International Exposition.
