There are many easy hiking trails in Germany
There are many more walks in the Lower Rhine Plains between Krefeld and the Dutch-German border other than the two that we introduced here over the past two weeks. The European Long Distance Trail GR8, for example, will take you from Nijmegen to Kalkar or Xanten and beyond, while an extensive network of picturesque foot…
Last week, we enjoyed the baroque splendour of the landscaped gardens around the Prinz Moritz trail. Today, we stay in the same area and (roughly) the same period of German history, moving only a few kilometres up the Lower Rhine Valley and a few decades down the line to the time of the friendship between…
Germany is Europe’s premier hiking country: nowhere else on the “old continent” will you be able to find a similarly large number and variety of well-designed and diligently maintained trails. Few hikers outside of Germany, however, will be able to name a trail that does not run either through the Black Forest or along the…
As the saying goes, the past is never dead. It is not even past. Passing through almost any town or village in Europe, you can – with a little skill and effort – still spot the stains of dried blood that have been left behind by the crimes and misdemeanours of past centuries. Perhaps you…
Art in the public arena: this has been the overriding topic of all Skulptur Projekte exhibitions in the West German town of Münster since 1977. Every ten years – the event coincides with every other documenta at Kassel, modern art’s most famous regular showcase – cutting-edge sculptures are put on display across the historic Old…
Finding the essence, the true spirit or soul of a place: this is perhaps the most difficult thing to attempt on one’s travels. It is certainly the most frequent source of frustrations. We travel to a place where we have never been but of which we have heard, seen and fantasized a lot about, and…
The city of Potsdam is the number one daytrip destination from Berlin. And for good reasons, too: it is surrounded by parks and forests, contains several picturesque bodies of water and provides paths for hiking and biking. Above all, however, it is full of history: old history – as the former residence of Prussia’s most…
Lakeside hiking trails are, in general, good fun. Good fun: it is this lack of more profound ambitions that makes lakeside hiking trails popular but that also limits their appeal. If one were to classify hiking routes according to their level of complexity, trails around small inland lakes would wind up at the very bottom…
This week, the latest edition of the Skulptur Projekte will be opening in the northwestern German city of Münster. This open-air art exhibition is staged once every ten years and scheduled to coincide with that year’s documenta, the world’s foremost showcase of modern art. The Skulptur Projekte is narrower in focus than the documenta (which…
There is, as the Book of Ecclesiastes says, a time and a season for everything: a season for exhausting hikes through mountainous territory (spring, let’s say), a season for coastal walks with swimming wear in the backpack (that would be summer, of course), and a season for themed town walks in two halves with a…