Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our friends and readers! New Adventures for Beginners in 2026 will take us into the hidden world of France’s second city … … up and down the riverside of the European capital of Rock’n Roll … … and into newly created open spaces of somewhere closer…
Overtourism is in the headlines. Natives in some of Europe’s favourite destinations are protesting, demanding restrictions and aiming water pistols at foreign visitors – for the time being, they still leave it at that. For decades, tourists – inasmuch as they were thinking at all about the impact they were having on their host towns…
Most people who visit Naples for the first time put a day trip to Pompeii near the top of their agenda. We, however, did not. Our recent trip to Naples was our fourth – we still had not seen the ruins – and I finally surrendered, much in the spirit of a man who hates……
What people want most in life is love – or so psychologists had thought for a long time. Latest research in the field, however, appears to indicate that humans crave respect even more: and, above all, the kind of respect which is most hurtfully denied to them. Beautiful women want to be admired for their……
The concept of a journey implies that with every step of the way, the world changes in some aspect and also that something changes in us. (Italo Calvino) There is no Italian town without tourists. You only have the choice between different degrees of crowdedness: some towns at the extreme end of the spectrum function……
Just as Italy is not just the sum of Rome, Florence and Venice, Campania – the region south of Rome and its province of Lazio – is more than Naples plus the Amalfi Coast. Today and over the next few weeks, we will present this region to you in its full diversity, offering you something……
Here is how to explore Naples: if you only have two hours – time to kill between two trains, let’s say – I would suggest you walk up and down Via Tribunale, the main street of the city since Roman times. If you have one full day, you may want to extend your focus to……
We wish all our friends and readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Mediterranean, where they celebrate Christmas in slightly different ways. They certainly have their own ideas of what constitutes an appropriate seasonal decoration. We now take our usual winter break and will be back with new “Adventures for Beginners”…
Winter is the season that most dramatically divides the world into North and South. But here is a comforting thought for all those among you who are currently in the grip of the cold and the dark: the people who inhabit the gentler climes of the Mediterranean may be spared the worst of the weather,…
We, Mr. and Mrs. Easy Hiker, wish our friends and readers a great Christmas and a happy new year! The blog will take a brief seasonal hiatus and hope you will follow us on new “adventures for beginners” when we return in mid-January.