Battle for Paris
Collier's
Ernest Hemmingway
September 30, 1944
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Sunday, November 15, 2015
it is by riding a bicycle that you learn the countours of a country best
I stopped at the command post of the infantry regiment of the division in a wood just outside of Maintenon to ask for information on the front this regiment was holding… I was informed there was heavy fighting outside of Rambouillet. I knew the country and the roads around Epernon, Rambouillet, Trappes and Versailles well, as I had bicycled, walked and driven a car through this part of France for many years. It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the countours of a country best, since you have to seat up the hills and can coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motorcar only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of the country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.
