Paris walking and your feet (know a podiatrist ?)

Paris is best discovered on foot. This has been said a thousand times before. Or, these days, on rented bike (the Velib, see my other entry) on buses (huge network) and le métro (very extensive and in total apparently around 220 km long ! :-o). Nowadays, there are also the trams (mostly in the edges circling Paris along the peripheriques or ring roads) and Autolib (the electric car equivalent of Velib. You take a car for fractions of half hours and, like velib, you take a car in one place and return it in another place. The time is calculated from the moment you unplug the car to the moment you replug the car in your destination). Cycling, driving, riding on a bus indeed give one different views of Paris. Metro is essentially if you want to get anywhere fast and easy. If taking the metro, always check the website ratp.fr to see if there are problems on certain lines or stations closed for work or other problems such as, I hear this often, voyageur malade or sick passanger !. Buses allows you to observe what's going on from a comfortable height and comfortable environment. Seated on a window seat, you could peacefully contemplate the buildings that wizz by (never too fast, given the traffic in Paris thought buses have until now their own lanes usable also by taxis), or people watch bordering on voyeurism. Bikes are probably less peaceful as you have to watch for cars, buses and pedestrians (bikes are prohibited on pavements but can use the bus lanes to the annoyances of bus and taxi drivers). Walking of course puts you in the middle of it all in Paris. You might not have a complete view of everything like when you sit in a bus, but you definitely feel things more: the stress of the people, their happiness, their fear, and obviously their attitudes (gleaned from whether they act like they are the only people on this earth and thus the pavement belongs to them...you move aside or I'll bump you, or some even smile at you !). In Paris we do a lot of walking (even when taking the metro, you will walk to the station, up and down stairways since escalators are not always available). And walking has been credited to contribute to the cardiac health of Parisians despite their stressful life (as life would be in any large city) and polluted air. Indeed, Parisians apparently have healthier heart (physiologically speaking here) than people living in the countryside of France. In any case, you cannot but develop a love for walking once you come to Paris. In Los Angeles, my dream as a young boy was of course to own a car so I could zip anywhere (notably at that time, West Hollywood. The Rage was THE gay club to go then...I remember the letter e got short-circuited I guess and at night you see the name RAG instead of Rage lol). Walking was unthinkable. In my time, LA did not have the subway (and still minimal today) and the bus system would make you cry Hallelujah when you finally see a bus approaching after a long interminable wait. Walking was never an option or a possible means of transport that one considers. OK, maybe to see your neighbor, but that's it. Everywhere else it was by car. So, discovering the joy of walking was something new to me then (first in NYC, then Melbourne, then Paris. Paris by far is the best place to walk though). One thing you notice maybe is the number of podiatrists in Paris. Just walking in my neighborhood I find a few offices of podiatrists. Why asked I before. I know now the answer. Walking maybe fun, but it is could be hard on your feet. Lately, I have had bad back, pain on my hip etc. which I tell myself cannot yet be attributed to aging. I discovered via x-ray (done for other reasons) one of my legs is longer than the other (what ?). Apparently, this is normal, no one has exactly two same length legs. But on the x ray, one leg was longer more than 1 cm compared to the other. If walking a lot, you may feel the consequences over time. So, I was sent to see a podologue or foot doctor, I guess (podiatrist ?).

Many are private practitionners, but I was tipped to go to a podologie school where you are seen by students and their professor and can be measured for insoles (sole to insert in your shoes) to correct potential problems associated with walking. The examination takes longer because these are students practicing (but supervised) what they are learning. But you do pay less than going to a private practionner and, for me so far so good. I am loving walking Paris by night or by day even more with these soles in my shoes !