Today, at 43 years old, I decided to start a blog to note down memorable experiences while mapping.

So this is about a spring day two months ago when I mapped this set of bicycle lockers: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/82447313

They are located right next to the station in the Czech town of Melnik. They caught my attention when we were waiting for the train that was to take us into Prague. They work like this: You push your bicycle in, drop a small returnable deposit into the slot and that’s your bicycle safely stored for the day.

I could not help comparing them to the bicycle lockers next to the station of Wolfsburg, Germany, where I live. These work like this: You walk up to the operator’s office during their opening hours, sign a contract, pay a fee of 60€ (that’s for a year, but there are no shorter periods available).

I didn’t map anything else that day but there was also a nice public transport experience. At the end of our day trip to Prague we took the bus back from Ladvi to Melnik. It was during afternoon rush hour, so traffic moved slowly between the tower blocks. The bus was quite full, and after a day of sightseeing it already felt a little strange to sit as a tourist between locals going home from work. But when the long-haired bus driver turned up his radio as Queen played “Bohemian Rhapsody”, it felt as if we had been caught in an indie road movie by accident.

Another thing I like about Ladvi is that the green areas between the tower blocks are mapped as appropriate (garden/park/grass).