Segway had introduced the two wheeled self balancing electric vehicles sometime in 2001. They are very good for roaming around in cities where good roads and pathways exist. I have been spotting them in many western countries.
The first sighting happened in O’Porto, (Portugal) which is a lovely city very popular with tourists. There they had these Segways and tiny electric cars kept by the roadside for people to pick up, at a fee no doubt.
I saw young tourists getting about in them smartly along the strand next to the Duoro River, close to the Sandeman winery, in wrap around sunglasses 😎 and with maps in hand. They looked pretty cool.
Of course they had their helmets on, the same way when they were on roller blades. But that was only a small inconvenience compared to the thrill of the ride on two wheels, with the breeze on your face.
The next sighting happened in Belem, Lisbon (Portugal) followed by Seville, (Spain), where they had these things stacked by the roadside for the convenience of the tourists.
One year later, I also saw a man in St Petersburg, Russia, travelling on a Segway with a map in hand. He passed me by as I stood on the pavement waiting in the drizzle without an umbrella, to enter the Hermitage Museum. .
And convenient, they are. A lot of old cities are best enjoyed on foot, travelling through lanes and by lanes spotting old ancient monuments and buildings and stopping in roadside cafes. But whereas such walking tours can be pretty exhausting ( I can tell you that for free ! ), travelling by Segways is not.
In fact many of the western cities offer Segway Tours, where groups of tourists are taken around the cities on their Segways, led by a guide using whispers.
Whispers are (by the way) very short range radios over which the guide provides the running commentary as the troops follow with earphones on. That way people can travel without having to stay bunched up around the guide to hear and hang on to every word spoken.
Being short range radios the signals in your ears weaken if you stray too much or lag behind the guide. It happens to me often as I stray frequently in order to take as many photos as possible to immortalize the memories of my travels.
But I have to struggle just as frequently to keep up with the guides by hastening and jostling through milling crowds estimating the distance from the guide, judging by the loudness of the signal in my ears.
But I am digressing, as usual. It’s a habit I’m becoming rather good at these days as I gain in seniority. Loving it too.
Coming to the sighting in hand, it happened in Bergen, Norway. We were in a tour bus travelling through the city and stopping occasionally to admire the views deemed interesting or important by our guide.
While passing by the Bergen Harbour I saw this group of tourists perched on their individual Segways gathered around a person – probably the tour guide who was similarly balanced on a Segway – probably for a pre tour briefing. Bergen is actually quite famous for its 5-star Segway tours. The reason for this is it is very tempting to walk around all the interesting looking lanes, by lanes the fish market and so on. A bus tour cannot even begin to do justice to the attractions of the place.
I wanted to wait and to take a video of the tour group moving on their Segways behind the guide. But the bus moved on and I soon lost sight of them.
Fifty Shades of Random Ramblings 