  A study covering some aspects of the Einstein--Rosen metric is presented. The
electric and magnetic parts of the Weyl tensor are calculated. It is shown that
there are no purely magnetic E--R spacetimes, and also that a purely electric
E--R spacetime is necessarily static. The geodesics equations are found and
circular ones are analyzed in detail. The super--Poynting and the
``Lagrangian'' Poynting vectors are calculated and their expressions are found
for two specific examples. It is shown that for a pulse--type solution, both
expressions describe an inward radially directed flow of energy, far behind the
wave front. The physical significance of such an effect is discussed.
