I recently spent a day in Antwerp. I haven't visited this city in Belgium before, mainly due to the fact that it's "so close" that I can "visit anytime." Unfortunately this logic has meant that many of the great cities closest to the Netherlands - like Copenhagen, Dublin, and Antwerp - have remained unexplored.

I was there attending a conference so other than the hotel and a university building, I saw little else. But my main observation was in relation to the bike paths. Yes, they were there, but they seemed somehow more difficult to spot than the Dutch variety. Often I would walk down the sidewalk and realize with dismay that I was in the bike path, a terrible tragedy for an avid biker like me.

But near the Central Station, there were these beautiful, sliver bike-lane markers dotting both sides of the path leaving up to the station's entrance. I was so tickled that I snapped a photo - and was promptly almost hit by a bike.