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A revolution takes place on the streets of Paris as the city launches Europe’s biggest bike-sharing scheme. More than 10,000 “free” cycles will are available at self-service stations across the French capital in a bid to transform Paris into a clean, green 21st-century utopia.

Anybody with a bank card will be able to borrow a bike: simply turn up at one of 750 stations (you will never be more than 300 metres away from one, it is claimed), swipe your card and type in your Pin. If you return the bike within half an hour, it’s free.

Cycle-share schemes have been tried before, without success. In Amsterdam, the bikes were left unlocked – before long, most had been stolen or tossed into canals. But the Paris scheme, called Vélib’, is more sophisticated: bikes are parked securely at kerbside stanchions and fitted with alarms. When you borrow one, a €150 deposit (about £100) will be held on your card. If you don’t return it to one of the stations within 24 hours, you’ll be billed.

Vélib’ is the latest attempt by the socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, to persuade Parisians to kick their addiction to cars. It’s a bold scheme. By the end of the year there will be more than 20,000 bikes and 1,400 stations – all funded by street-level advertising. Other administrations are watching closely. If Vélib’ is a success, the idea could be aped across Europe.

Paris is slowly becoming less hostile to le vélo. Thanks to Delanoë’s enthusiasm for ripping up its roads, the city now has 370km of dedicated cycle paths and bike-friendly bus lanes. Signage is improving, and every Sunday, roads and bridges along the Seine are closed to motorised traffic, and swarm with cyclists and skaters. So, to test the waters, I spent last weekend pedalling around Paris – and got a sneak preview of the Vélib’. The bike itself is sturdy and comfortable, with a wide saddle, chain guard (no need for ugly bicycle clips), basket, bell and dynamo-powered front and rear lights. The hard tyres are virtually indestructible and the three-gear Shimano hub should cope easily with the city’s modest slopes. At 22kg, it’s not built for speed, but it is undeniably stylish, finished in pearl grey with a discreet multicoloured logo. I think Parisians will ride them with pride.

Now, the costs. After the first free half-hour, rental rises steeply: €1 (70p) for an hour, €3 for 90 minutes and €7 for two hours. There is also a fixed daily charge of €1 to use the scheme. This means if you plan to rent a bike for a full day, Vélib’ isn’t for you. But if you want to nip from cafe to shops to museums and back, it’s ideal.

The benefits of cycling in Paris extend beyond the environmental. On a bike you are free to create your own narrative and let caprice be your guide. Plus, of course, there is the deep satisfaction of knowing you are no longer subsidising the world’s rudest taxi drivers.

If you ride regularly in London, or just about anywhere else in urban Britain, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the relaxed pace over there. Parisians pootle along sedately, like Oxford dons in 1950s films, determined not to work up a sweat. And perhaps because they don’t have a sliver of hard steel slicing into their buttocks – when it comes to saddles they favour something large and padded – they deport themselves with relative grace, not bellowing at pedestrians or punching cars.

On the other hand, they’re notoriously bad at paying attention to traffic signs. They jump red lights, ride on pavements and routinely go the wrong way up one-way streets. Until now, drivers and pedestrians have been surprisingly tolerant of this kind of behaviour, but with another 10,000 cycles appearing on the streets overnight, that could change.

So where should you start? If it’s a Sunday, head to the Seine, otherwise you may need to do a little homework. The city publishes a free map that shows the official cycle routes, but I found it more fun to explore unknown neighbourhoods.

Céline Esperin, who leads cycle tours of the city for a company called Paris à Vélo C’est Sympa!, says the key is to avoid the big roundabouts like the Place de la Bastille and the Arc de Triomphe. She recommends the historic streets of Le Marais, lined with fashionable cafes and boutiques.

I followed Céline through Le Marais, stopping in the gardens of the Place des Vosges before heading west past the Pompidou Centre into Beaubourg and Les Halles. Miraculously, we managed this without encountering a single busy road. And who would have guessed it was legal to cycle around the gardens of the Palais Royal and the courtyards of the Louvre?

For skinflint tourists, the real fun will come in dashing around the city looking for Vélib’ stations before the 30 minutes are up. In theory, there is nothing to stop you parking your bike at a station then hopping straight back onto another, so it should be possible to spend an entire weekend riding around without paying more than a euro a day.

If you venture out of the city centre you’ll find some great rides, such as the 4½km Promenade Plantée, a former railway line converted into a footpath and bike track. Straight and flat, it cuts a sylvan swathe through the eastern suburbs, taking you from the Bastille all the way beyond the Périphérique to the Bois de Vincennes, a vast wild park of woods, streams and boating lakes.

In the 10th arrondissement, you can cycle along the banks of the Canal St-Martin, gazing up at footbridges and peering into the windows of houseboats. Once you reach Place de Stalingrad, head right to one of the city’s most beautiful green spaces, the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, a fairy-tale park of lakes, cliffs and wooded paths. From there, I cruised downhill through the former villages of Belleville and Ménilmontant, both fascinating and gritty districts rarely seen by tourists.

Handing back the bike was almost as painful as hailing a taxi to the Gare du Nord. “What do you think about Vélib’?” I asked the driver. Barely able to contain his rage, he flecked the windscreen with spittle and declared it “ une catastrophe”. How very wrong I hope he proves to be.

There’s something very special about the French alpine resort of Val D’Isère. With 90 ski lifts and 300 km of ski runs, it’s truly a wintersports’ paradise.

What’s more, thanks to its neighbouring Pissaillas glacier, you can actually ski in the area for 12 months of the year.

Not that there aren’t plenty of other things to do when the winter snows recede, with mountain biking and road cycling, hiking, bird watching, horse trekking and other activities drawing hordes of outdoor lovers to the area right through the languid summer. And the crowds are never heavier than when the sun-bronzed athletes of the Tour de France roll though town.

Since first figuring on the route of ‘La Grande Boucle’ in 1947, neighbouring Briançon – the highest city in Europe – has been a Tour host some 22 times.

This July, the ninth stage ran through Val d’Isère, crossing the Col de L’Iseran pass, one of Europe’s highest, the Col du Telegraphe and the starkly beautiful Col du Galibier before a breakneck 37 km downhill rush into Briançon.

One of the key figures behind the world’s greatest annual sporting challenge is Jean-Claude Killy, a native son of Val d’Isère and, in his youth, reckoned by many to have been the greatest skier in the world.

Today, the resort’s massive Espace Killy wintersports’ playground is named in honour of the man who took three gold medals at the 1968 Grenoble winter Olympics.

Here beginners and experts, skiers, snowboarders and telemarkers are all spoilt for choice, whether their taste is for marked runs, off-piste or freeride – and the truly adventurous can experience specially created big-air, half-pipe and other rails.

The quality of snow allows sensational powder skiing and many are especially attracted in springtime.

Local hero Louis Bonnevie was French national skiing champion as far back as 1906 while in 1948 Henri Oreiller won two medals at the St. Moritz winter Olympics. Since then, other hometown heroes have included the Goitschel sisters, Patrice Bianchi, Ingrid Jacquemond, Pierre Paquin, Audrey Peltier and seven times snowboard world cup winner Mathieu Bozzetto.

After all that activity on the piste, Val d’Isère really knows how to party. There are pedestrianised arcades with a host of cosy tea-rooms, intimate little bars and elegant hotels and eateries for all tastes, from quick food to gourmet, often featuring the superb local Savoyard specialities – as at La Table des Neiges where chef de cuisine Jérôme Labrousse creates a truly gastronomic experience based on the freshest local ingredients. The boutique shopping is great too.

Early forecasts for heavy snows at the start of this coming winter are being made by Piers Corbyn, founder of Weather Action, who predicts that the very jet stream that has brought the wet weather that’s ruined our summer, will go on to create a great winter for the Alpine resorts.

In Val d’Isère it will all kick off in November with the Critérium de la Première Neige World Alpine Skiing Cup event. In January, spectacular firework displays and torchlight descents upstage the sporting side of things until, in February, Val d’Isère becomes the unofficial freestyle capital of the world.

In March and April there are music and film festivals and the season closes in early May – and that’s when the summer visitors plan their arrival.

The piste makes a truly exciting alternative to the golf green as a place to seal business deals and Val d’Isère has conference facilities as well as being a favoured choice for incentives that truly sparkle.

If the first firework wasn’t enough, the second deafening crack certainly raised mine and the crowd’s collective awareness. Then the madness started.

The first runners could be seen in the distance in the canyon-like confined street of Santo Domingo. Their progress was so sluggish they appeared to be running in treacle; their expressions tightened as the bulls bore upon the stragglers. 

The bulls run at a blistering pace – covering 100m in around six seconds.  That’s nearly twice as fast as an Olympic sprinter. Within seconds of the first firework foolhardy souls are swamped. From the safety of the sidelines you could see bodies crush in slow motion as the six bulls piled into them sliding and skittering on the shiny cobbles like a deer on ice.  

For most of the year, Pamplona, located in the north-eastern province of Navarra, is just like any other Spanish provincial town. In July though it is transformed into the focus of an international bacchanal – the annual nine-day festival of San Fermin – the patron saint of Navarra.  

The most famous part of the cermony is the Running of the Bulls, or Enceirro. This breathtaking display of bravery first attracted Ernest Hemingway, and brought this spectacular and deadly custom to a wider audience. Originally, men from the surrounding arid landscape would have taken part. The documented history of the enceirro dates back to the 16th Century, though its roots extend back through the mists of time to the era when Spain first embraced Christianity. Now Pamplona’s population of nearly 200,000 swells ten fold during the San Fermin celebrations to welcome 2 million visitors.  With epic parties and guaranteed action, it should come as no surprise that this is one of the must-see events on the international backpacker circuit. Today, thousands of runners, wannabe runners, thrill seekers and party goers make their way to this small town each July for the eight day fiesta.  Hotel rooms are like gold dust, booked months in advance, the festival running all day everyday for eight days. And despite the late nights, the Enceirro takes place every morning at 8am sharp. This distilled Spanish spirit has to be witnessed first hand.  

Unlike bull-fights, which are performed by professionals and idolised as gods, anyone feeling brave enough may take part in an encierro. However, most of the men who participate are young and athletic – but they’re not athletes. Athletes train morning noon and night for a race; the only training these chaps have done for the last week or so are short repetitious curls of their drinking arms.  

A heavy and constant intake of alcohol in the approaching to the running of the bulls is almost as traditional as the event itself. And who can blame them, with the bulls weighing as much as 1,500kg, you need all the confidence beer can muster. Injuries are common; both to the participants who may be gored or trampled, and to the bulls, whose hooves grip poorly on the paved or cobbled street surfaces.

Since 1924, 13 people have been killed. The last was a 22-year-old American, Matthew Peter Tassio, who was gored in 1995. This year’s festival is due to pay a special tribute to him to mark the 10th anniversary of his death. Another famed runner, Fermin Etxeberria Irañeta, died in 2003. Etxeberria, 63 when he died, had never suffered an injury in 350 runs. Anyone who survives a close encounter with a panicky bull is said to have been protected by San Fermin’s cloak.

At about 7am, stewards and officials begin to barricade off the streets; the course the bulls run takes shape.  Using large pieces of wood fencing, the officials mark well worn route through the cobblestone streets. The rudimentary fence is about six feet high and is made of two sturdy cross bars of thick rough-sawn wood – one for stepping on to get over the top and the other as the top.

The fence also had large gaps on the bottom for people to slide under if they are being chased by the bulls and want to make a quick escape. Of course, during the melee, there are thousands of spectators crushed up against the fence, so finding solace behind it isn’t that easy.

Around 7:30am, workmen began to hose down the streets in readiness for the main event. The half-mile (848-metre) route – extends from the inclined street of Santo Domingo to the city’s bullring. The chase rarely lasts more than three minutes, unless one of the bulls becomes separated from the herd.

Stray bulls become extremely agitated, and so the organisers arrange for a second release of calmer and older steers to run through the streets in order to pick up any straggling bulls. The first firework announces the release of the bulls from their corral, and a second signals that the last bull has left the corral.

From there, the animals stamped along Santo Domingo and cross the Town Hall Square.  As the chaos intensifies, the charge enteres Calle Mercaderes – this street signifies the beginning of the most treacherous stretch of the course. A dangerous blind curve leads into the Calle Estafeta, the longest and most infamous part of the route.  

Although all the stretches are dangerous, the curve of the Calle Mercaderes and the stretch between the Calle Estafeta and the Bull Ring are those which hold the most risk. This is where the casualties rise. Immediately after is the Calle Duque de Ahumada – known locally as as the Telefónica. This gives way to the dead end street which leads to the bull ring. Thankfully, nobody was badly injured on this occasion, but with enceirros taking place for the following week, gorings are common.

As the mayhem approached my vantage point, the crowd of white-clad runners suddenly split to reveal a snorting bovine mass. Only now did I understand the threat to the runners faced from its sharp horns and rippling black body was entirely real.

“If you go down, stay down,” was the advice I heard offered by one San Fermin veteran.

As the chaos passed, the mayhem abated almost as quickly as it came. The chase entered the bull ring enclosure and a third rocket arced into the sky. Inside the crowd enjoyed the spectacle of the runners being tossed in the corrida, and other tender parts. The fourth firework indicated that the beasts were safely sequestered in the bullpens and the Bull Run was over.

Of course the danger and mayhem doesn’t stop the thousands of men who’ve come here to prove their worth in the face of galloping adversity. To the outsider it might seem like a spectacularly futile exercise, but that would be missing the point. The enceirro is a blinding metaphor that encapsulates the indomitable spirit of Spain.