Is Clermont-Ferrand one of the least accessible French cities on foot? In any case, this is what a study carried out by an online language learning platform says.
Dijon, Nîmes and Rennes should congratulate themselves. They make up the top three of the most walkable French cities. Conversely, Marseille, Aix-en-Provence and Clermont-Ferrand are in the top five of the least walkable French cities, with the Auvergne capital taking fourth place.
The online language learning platform Preply has just released this data, following a study aimed at ranking the easiest towns to explore on foot. Because according to Preply, in addition to an economical and ecological way to discover a city, walking is also “the best way to discover the essence of a language or a culture”, by strolling through the streets.
Method
To develop their analysis, the team based themselves on the walking distance between the five most popular tourist attractions in each city according to Tripadvisor.
Twenty-five cities were analyzed. To choose them, “we looked at the largest population centers in France. From the list of cities, we used TripAdvisor to find the top five tourist attractions in each city, based on visitor ratings,” the platform reports.
For each city, each of the attractions was analyzed on Google Maps’ route planner to find the fastest walking route to visit the five attractions. The distances and walking times were then recorded.
13.6 km on foot
To estimate the number of steps taken, the teams then used a conversion rate of 1,315 steps per kilometer, based on an average step length of 76 cm. They thus estimated that in Clermont-Ferrand, visitors will have to take at least 17,000 steps to visit all the most important sites in one day. The distance between these attractions being 13.6 km, it will be necessary to cover some 17,680 steps in 240 minutes.
Receive our leisure newsletter by email and find ideas for outings and activities in your region.
premium Clermont-Ferrand buses will test descent on demand to reassure passengers after 10 p.m.
Interrogation
Nothing totally surprising however, since the study does not specify which attractions precisely it has selected each time. Now, if the Puy de Dôme and the Puy de Pariou are in the lot as is the case on Tripadvisor, it is certain that it will take much more time to connect them than to reach the cathedral from Notre-Dame-du-Port or the Aventure Michelin as recommended by Tripadvisor…
Gaëlle Chazal
