Among the peaks of the Riviera, the Mont des Mules enjoys a special place. Not because of its height: at 291 metres, it is little more than a pimple on the landscape. Its long and varied history reaches back into pre-Roman times and includes the episode when, in 1909, the municipality of Beausoleil (to which…
I told you it was going to be a sunny day. Which was no mere coincidence, of course. In fact, we let several days go by since the lockdown in our area had been lifted. Because there was no way we would let our first post-Covid 19 walk since what felt more like an imprisonment…
Hiking in the time of the Coronavirus. That could be the shortest post I would have ever written, consisting of nothing but a blank page. Actually, one could spin that off into an entire book – one of those novelty issues where empty page follows empty page: “The Great German Book of Humour”. ” Fine…
Most of our Riviera walks are intended for “slow travellers” who do not want or need to pack as much as is humanly possible into a two-day trip. Who love walking for its own sake. Who appreciate the arts and architecture. Who travel either alone or in a group of like-minded adults. Today’s walk belongs…
Last week, John and Julie asked us to take them on a walk. We had met John and Julie for the first time shortly after our arrival in Menton, nearly seven years ago. They were already familiar with our little corner of the world back then, but freely admit that they still have relatively little…
To tell you the truth about our recent trip to Tuscany: Florence and the Easy Hikers did not quite hit it off this time. Florence, of course, will survive this, but so shall we. We had visited Florence before, many years ago, and still have pleasant memories from this trip. What has changed in the…
Just as any trip to Tuscany feels strangely incomplete without the glories of her capital city, no visitor of Florence should leave without having made an excursion into the surrounding countryside, no matter how brief. Tuscany is one of the world’s truly legendary landscapes, a category which includes places like the Provence and the Black…
For a country with one of the longest coastlines in Europe, Italy – it has always seemed to me – has a surprisingly large number of large landlocked cities: Milan, Turin, Florence. Even Rome, strictly speaking, has no sea harbour (Ostia is more than 30 km away). What is the common secret of these places?…
Here is one point that even the grumpiest visitor of Monaco must concede: the principality is not stingy with its wealth. It provides spotlessly clean and ultra-safe streets (with police officers at every other corner and a dense array of high-tech CCTV systems), while lifts and escalators help the tired huddled masses of visitors along…
Some people find it fashionable to sneer at Monaco. There is nothing categorically wrong about sneering, I enjoy the occasional sneer as much as anybody, but for people who are travelling to see the world, it is the most counterproductive attitude you can imagine. After all, travelling is all about discoveries: about finding new things…