Hat tip to Eve Enslow for lending us her TykeToter.
Despite its cobblestoned surface, Seville is a very bike-friendly city. It has to be, when you have “streets” you can span side-to-side with your hands. So, while mopeds, cars and small vans do ply the old city, it’s primarily a pedestrian and bike zone.
And, like a growing number of cities worldwide, it’s speckled with bike stations where you can pick up a bike and the drop it off near your destination. There are 260 stations around Seville, so you’re never much further than a handful of blocks from where you need to be when you drop off, and the economics are attractive: €13 gets you a week’s “subscription”. With a subscription, you can pick up a bike from any station and take it wherever you need to go for free for the first half-hour (usually enough to get you wherever you want) and then €.50 for an hour after that.
The bikes in Seville have the nice feature of a child-foot-sized extrusion that is used to dock the bike at the station, allowing Zev to comfortably stand in front of me while I pedal. It’s a bit awkward, though, since he has to hang on to same handle bars that I use to steer.
Instead, we’ve been using the TykeToter
There’s something enormously comforting to me having him nestled in between my arms as we trek around the city. He generally has a monologue going describing the latest adventure in the two-sided light saber wielding jedi knight (or just hums along, enjoying the wha-wha-wha tattoo the cobblestones thump out of him). As we drift and swerve, I occasionally dip down to smell his hair or peck his head, and re-assure him in his stories with an appropriately timed “Mmm-hmmm”.
Of course, not to say we haven’t tried alternative transportation methods, as well. Michelle has borrowed a bike with a child seat on back from our AirBnB hostess, Rosa (that’s Zev in the yellow hat in the picture at left). And we’ve also gone with more traditional methods of child transport, such as the method demonstrated at right.
