Don't even attempt to go to France if you can't handle lots of steps. The Metro has lots of steps, few escalators and even fewer elevators. One of the transfers required a 90 step march up a spiral staircase although it did point to an elevator. Restaurants have usually put the toilette in the basement with a steep staircase leading downward, not always with railings. The hotel in Paris stairway looked like this. I would go down it but not up. Mainly because there was no railing on the right on the way up. It traverses from floor to floor in a half circle.
 |
| Paris hotel stairs |
 |
| Paris hotel stairs |
 |
| Paris hotel stairs |
Total of 421 flights of stairs during the trip, high days were 53 and 55 floors.
One of the museums had s spiral staircase like this. I reached across my body with my good right hand to grab the railing. My left hand is worthless for this, it doesn't slide and I have to yank it off whatever it is clamped on.
 |
| Museum stairs |
Disgraceful. Where is the outrage by French disability groups?
ReplyDeleteI found similar situations in Iceland and Sweden - little accomodation for disabled people, certainly no equivalent of ADA (for what that's worth).
ReplyDeleteBut then, there's a local church here that has a scary, to-the-dungeon type spiral stairway down to get from the front vestibule to the bathroom. Once you actually get there (by going out the front door and walking on the sidewalk around the building to get back inside through the handicapped-accessible door), the bathroom is actually handicapped-accessible, so the church somehow gets by "complying" with ADA.