For the past five years, we have been visiting easy hiking destinations on the Riviera. Since then, we have published roughly 100 posts on trails and day trips in the area, and that is counting the French side of the coast alone – while we are still adding new ideas and suggestions on a regular…
As the last walk before our summer break away from the Mediterranean, we had to complete some unfinished easy hiking business along the River Var after last month’s aborted mission. The Var is the river of the French southeast. Not so much because it was long or mighty – it is neither, not even making the…
The Canal de la Siagne is said to offer one of the best easy hiking experiences in the southeast. We found this only partly confirmed in April when we walked down the waterway’s final stretch near Cannes. For our second visit, we picked a section much further “upstream” – just to the south of Grasse…
If you have been in Nizza at any time during the past three years, you will have noticed that large sections of the city appear to be under construction. The various building sites across the town centre are all part of the Nice Tramway Line 2 project, the east-to-west line designed to complement the T1…
Michelin classifies sites and restaurants with a simple three-star system: sites are either “interesting”, “worth a detour” or “worth a trip”. Please note that this is not simply a way of saying “good”, “better” and “even better”: 3-star attractions such as Florence and Venice are good in different ways from a picturesque fishing village. A…
There are many ways in which you can divide up human beings meaningfully in two groups: NOT on the basis of whether they hear yanny or laurel or whether the colours on “the dress“ are black and blue or white and gold. But take for example holiday destinations: are you attracted to travel destinations because…
There is no longer any such thing as an “undiscovered” bit of Italy. Entire libraries have been written on the major sights and places, while even small villages produce thousands of hits on a Google search. There are still, however, parts of Italy that do not get the attention they appear to deserve, that are…
Briga is the Italian mountain village from central casting … … that somehow got lost and wound up on the other (French) side of the border where it was subsequently renamed La Brigue. Whatever nomenclature you prefer: this is a pleasant little place, much more charming than gloomy Tende a few kilometres to the north,…
Guest Post You thought that, when going hiking, missing the last bus home and leaks in the water bottle that ruin your backpack and everything inside were the biggest risks on the sort of tame outdoor “adventure” that we regularly advertise in these parts? Wrong – as you will find out in the following guest…
Scars, as a rule, do not make human faces prettier but can make them more interesting. The same mechanism is at work in towns and cities. Many modern cities with long histories bear the scars of old catastrophes in their townscapes: we can still see where the structure of London was altered following the Great…