Hiking in the Italian Riviera
There are three good reasons to visit the Cimitero Monumentale di Staglieno in Genoa, one of Italy’s (and Europe’s) most famous and important “cities of the dead”. (Hemingway called the Staglieno “one of the wonders of the world”, and writers as different as Friedrich Nietzsche and Mark Twain were among its admirers.) First, architectural history. Archaeologists…
If you are a frequent guest of this blog, you may remember our “two towns for one day’s walk” series of short and easy hikes which connect two villages along the Riviera coast (like Ventimiglia to Bordighera or Bordighera to San Remo or from Alassio to Laigueglia). In the mountainous back country, meanwhile, such a hike is…
One of the best, perhaps the single best feature of the Cinque Terre’s signature trail – the Blue Path – is its variety of views: you see the villages from different angles, sometimes in isolation and sometimes several at a time, sometimes from the front and sometimes from behind, sometimes from far away and sometimes…
Italy’s Cinque Terre National Park is home to the Mediterranean’s most famous network of hiking paths. So famous in fact that nearly all our acquaintances have, over the years, reacted with stunned disbelief when we told them that we – despite living so close to the Cinque Terre’s home region of Liguria – had never…
The Beodo palm grove is one of the most stunning sights in the whole of Northern Italy. If you have ever taken the bus from Ventimiglia in the direction of Sanremo and Genoa, you will probably have seen it and may have wondered what transported this piece of tropical landscape to the northern Italian coast….
One of the most reliably surprising experiences of any trip to the Riviera usually happens right at the start, even before you have fully arrived. When you come by plane from northern Europe, you will be flying over the snow-capped peaks of the High Alps one moment, then you blink, and the next time you…
As far as most tourists are concerned, the Riviera mainly consists of mountains and beaches. But that does not mean that mountains and beaches are all there is. In many places, admittedly, the transition from one to the other is rather sudden and immediate. On the French side of the Riviera (in particular), the mountains…
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…
MEDVIEDENKO Of all the cities you visited when you were abroad, Doctor, which one did you like the best? DORN Genoa. TREPLIEFF Why Genoa? DORN Because there is such a splendid crowd in its streets. When you leave the hotel in the evening, and throw yourself into the heart of that throng, and move with…