The Liberation Route Europe (which follows the movement of the Allied advance through northern Europe in the latter stages of WWII) is complemented by a wide range of shorter memorial trails around towns and villages, which are often laid out as circular walks to commemorate local events. One of the most famous and interesting of…
Over the years, we have introduced you to a large variety of hiking trails: trails in the mountains, trails by the sea, trails through wild forests, trails through parkland and so on. This time, however, we are going to tell you about a trail that is still very much in the making. Liberation and Remembrance…
No long-winded openings today: there is no time to lose. Six more contestants in the French Riviera’s inaugural Festival des Jardins are waiting for our visit! (The first four are here!) First, we are going to Antibes, or – to be more precise – to Antibes’s beach resort suburb of Juan-les-Pins, where – at Pinède Plage,…
Gardens are a part of the Riviera scenery like yachts, open-top sports cars and deposed government officials from corrupt cleptocracies. Unlike the mountains and the sea, they have not always been there but have become so much part of the cultural landscape that nobody remembers or can even imagine a time when they were not….
Minds much greater than my own have wrestled with this question without ever finding a conclusive answer: Where does the Riviera start? It does not take a great mind to see where it ends. Even I can see that it comes to a grinding halt at Cinque Terre, southeast of Genoa. As to its start…
Today, we are off to Menton, the easternmost resort on the French Riviera, for a walk that takes in all the best things about this blessed little spot: its history, its scenic location and its vicinity to la bella Italia. The walk allows you to experience Menton’s picturesque historic town centre, provides you with splendid views…
More Riviera gardens to discover! Last week, we surveyed the area east of Monaco and strolled deep into Italy, concentrating on the coast’s “classic” garden country for Riviera gardens to discover But the less climatically blessed western part of the Riviera – where the mountains are often further away from the coast and give the…
The Riviera is famous for … well, many things in fact – speed boats, card sharps, minor royals – so it never ceases to surprise me how many of the visitors we meet have explicitly come to see one of the gardens of the Riviera. I am – to be honest – not a natural…
The architecture of fascism is everywhere in Italy. If you have ever visited the country and are fascinated by fascist architecture, chances are you will have seen loads of it – unknowingly, perhaps, because these buildings blend in well with the rest of Italy’s street furniture, baroque churches and Renaissance palazzi included. The architecture of Italian…
I don’t know about you, but whenever we come across a town that has been labeled a City of the Arts, I get a queasy feeling in my stomach. From experience I know that all too often, this means grim medieval palazzi and stuffy churches that have been packed with dark, baffling and impenetrable paintings…