Velomet rental bike
Metz Bike Rental Program
If you are visiting Metz, France, there’s a good chance you don’t have a bicycle. Well you’re in luck. There’s a bikeshare program in Metz called VeloMet that allows you to rent a bicycle for the extremely reasonable rate of €3 per day or €8 per week. The VeloMet “office” is locate right near the Metz Cathedral near the city center. This area is hard to miss because:
- The cathedral is massive and gorgeous and contains the largest expanse of stained glass in the world.
- There are signs all over town pointing toward the Couer de Ville. (heart of the town)
The address for the Cathedral VeloMet station is: VELOMET’ CATHEDRALE, Rue d’Estrées, Proche Cathédrale, 57000
St. Etienne de Metz
METZ. Although the price for the VeloMet rental bikes is quite reasonable, be forewarned; they want a €200 deposit and (this is the crazy part) they want it in CASH. They do not accept credit cards. So go prepared to pay the €200 plus the rental cost of €3 or €8. So now you have a bicycle to tour the bike paths of Metz, France.
Metz Bike Trails
You will find bike lanes all over Metz. Some of them are protected lanes and others are not. But the best part of biking in Metz, France is the bike trails.There are scads of them, and they’re awesome. Most of the bike paths follow along some sort of water route such as a canal or riv.er. Finding a name for these trails is nearly impossible. They
swans in canal by trail
are not well signed and most of the locals don’t even know the names for the various bike paths. Some of the names for these bike paths may be:
- Circuit de Ramparts
- Le Canal de Jouye Path
- Metz Canal Bike Trail
Or not. These are logical guesses based upon the few signs along the trail.
But it doesn’t matter what they’re called, they’re beautiful and peaceful (on weekdays anyway). As you stroll or bike along the trail, you will likely see swans, flowers, houseboats, canal barges and castle/rampart walls. It’s like biking through medieval Europe with an occasional road crossing.
Circuit des Ramparts
Metz also has a more prominent and lengthy bike path known as the Veloroute de Charles Temeraire. It is fairly new and, once again, it’s extremely hard to get information about it from the locals. So I’ll be riding part or all of it tomorrow and writing a post about it right here on Trailsnet.com.
