Why I Do Not Like Hiking by Hugh Sluggard 1. Hiking is hard work I do not like hiking because I abhor physical and, indeed, challenges of any other kind. If it weren’t for the kids, I would gladly spend my holidays on the sofa, watching old episodes of Happy Days. Ah, the Fonz! They…
Day hiking in Germany Guns and Forest on a Hiking Trail? Over the next few months, I am going to tell you – in a loose series of posts – a little bit about day hikes in the Ruhrgebiet, Germany’s old industrial heartland. The Ruhrgebiet may not be an area that many foreigners will want to…
Hiking trails near Paris The Parisian banlieue has a bad reputation, not all of it undeserved. At its worst, the urban sprawl beyond the Parisian city limits is an uncomfortable and possibly even dangerous place (for those of you who haven’t seen the movie La Haine, think of the South Bronx or Tower Hamlets), while most…
Day Trip from Paris The White House Le Corbusier Built I am not a great fan of art museums – mainly because I have hardly ever learned anything from looking at a picture on a museum wall that I had not already learned from looking at a good reproduction in a book. Architecture, however, is…
A Visit to Au Vieux Campeur in Paris Let’s get this out of the way now. This is NOT a sponsored post. I have not received a Euro cent (or a penny) from Au Vieux Campeur in Paris, and not a free book or a free map either. In fact, the Vieux Campeur is…
Easy hiking in Germany I’m sure you will agree. To visit the mountains without getting to the summit of one is like traveling to the sea without dipping as much as your toe into the water. So when we recently visited the Harz mountains in northern Germany and had no time to climb the Brocken…
Where to Go in Germany An Old Peep Show Machine In the age before computers and video games, itinerant amusement parks in the 30s to the 50s were the place kids and adults could have some fun. At the end of our day hike on the Siebengebirge south of Bonn in Germany, we chanced upon these…
Day Trip from Paris Memories of Two World Wars The highlight of our day hike in Compiegne was the visit to the Musee de l’Armistice to view some of the relics of two world wars. Aside from the monument erected to honour the war dead, we saw relics of two world wars that were on display too….
Hiking near Paris Easy Hiking in Compiegne Compiègne is a handsome market town 60 km north of Paris. It houses Napoleon’s favourite castle, a beautiful Renaissance Town Hall and a 13th century church. I bet you did not know that Compiegne has a proud history as an Olympic town, too – it hosted the golf competition…
Day Trip from Paris Here’s What Hitler did in Compiegne One hour away from Paris lies the quiet provincial town of Compiegne where not one but two recent chapters of European history were completed. If the 30 Year European War from 1914 to 1945 was a drama in five acts, Compiegne was the stage of…