If we have so far – with last week’s post and the dispatches from our previous trip to Brittany – given you the impression that this corner of north-western France is all stone, sunshine and dramatic rock formations, then today’s visit to the Ile Grande provides the perfect opportunity for setting things straight. This island…
All walks are different but the most interesting ones fall into one of three broad categories. First of all, there are mountain walks, which – to use a musical analogy – are a lot like opera. Full of excitement and drama, they always make you anticipate the next narrative twist along the route in the…
Wroclaw may be a great place for mysteries if you are into that sort of thing, but one thing is certain: it is surely a great place to go dwarf hunting. Just walk around – and when you see one, or better: two, perhaps even three – … … walk over and shoot. That’s how…
Do you like to uncover mysteries? To search for hidden truths? To scratch the veneer of appearances to see what has so carefully been concealed from you? f the answer to that is yes, then the Polish city of Wroclaw is the perfect destination for you. Over there, in the German-Polish borderlands, you will find…
There are many things to do in Monaco besides gambling away your family fortune. You can, for example, hike to the top of the Tete de Chien, the “Dog’s Head” that keeps a watchful eye on the town from its lofty heights … … or visit one of the principality’s many gardens and sculpture parks….
If we have whetted your appetite with our last two posts, you may be wondering: what is the best way for yourself to explore the villages of Provence? When you are looking for answers on the Internet, you can easily get the impression that the public transport infrastructure of the area will not be very…
Provence is famous for its pretty villages: their street markets, busy sidewalk cafes and colourfully decorated handicraft shops. Les Baux, however, one of the region’s top destinations, is not like that at all. For one, you will find fewer sidewalk cafes and restaurants, certainly none that would line the high street. You will also find…
Over the years, we have travelled extensively on the various van Gogh trails in France, driven purely by the power of circumstance. When we lived in Paris, the artist was practically our neighbour, separated from us by no more than a couple of blocks and 120 years. Way back then, we also followed van Gogh’s…
You may have never heard the name before, but Görlitz in the extreme south-eastern corner of Germany is a serious contender for the crown of the country’s Most Beautiful Town. In a part of Europe that has been devastated by violent conflicts time and again over the centuries, Görlitz has managed to survive the horrors…
The Holocaust was the crime of the 20th century, but even within this bloodstained frame, the extinction of Poland’s and Warsaw’s Jews stands out for its exceptional cruelty: these people – who had done nobody any harm – were imprisoned, starved and told lies about their future while the infrastructure for their murder was being…