Valencia is the third biggest city in Spain, but it is fair to say, I believe, that it struggles at times to be seen in the shadow that is cast by its two larger rivals. Valencia may lead the peloton, but in almost every field from football to film and fashion, Madrid and Barcelona are…
There is – on top of what we told you last week – another reason for making your way up Alicante’s Santa Barbara Castle. Once that challenge is out of the way, you are free to enjoy the other things that the city has to offer: the beauty of its townscape, lush tropical fauna and…
Today’s post is all about the best walk to have a perfect day in Nice, so good that it is well worth dedicating an entire day to it. You start in the morning walking into the town centre via the Promenade des Anglais (all the way from the Parc Phoenix tram stop, if you can…
Nice and Paris – the two most visited cities in France – make up an odd couple. In almost every way you look at them, they are the antithesis of each other. Above all, the two are distinguished by the weather, of course: unpredictable and often grim in the capital, sweet and gentle on the…
Most people would classify Sestri Levante as a “tourist town”, but you should not think that this is a good reason for bypassing Sestri on your tour of Northern Italy. First of all, because the tag “tourist town”, although commonly used with more than a hint of contempt, is not, if you think about it,…
There cannot be many major rivers in the world that have a proper hiking trail attached to them all the way through, from the source to the spot where they join the sea. The Thames, Britain’s most famous river, is lined by such as a “source-to-sea” footpath – which, with a total length of well…
The town of Aveiro, roughly an hour away from Porto by train, is a favourite daytrip destination for visitors of Portugal’s second city. Aveiro has become a busy tourist town mainly on the strength of two attractions – firstly, a network of urban canals, which is also the reason why the town is frequently called…
Happy accidents are the gold standard of tourist experiences. You walk somewhere in the town centre of your destination, take a turn off the main street, then another turn and yet another, and before you know what is happening, you find yourself in a part of the city that looks dramatically different from the pictures…
Porto, Portugal’s second city, is a relatively recent arrival on the list of Favoured European Travel Destinations. Over the past 20 years, it has made the leap from amateur status to the Premier League of tourist destinations, powered by double-digit annual growth rates of visitor numbers for over a decade. It now counts over 2.5…
There are quite a few things to say about the political scene in the south of France, not all of them complimentary. If you want to get a flavour of how things are done around here, a good place to start is the story of Jacques Médecin, the mayor or Nice from 1966 to 1990…