Hiking and Walking in France
Hikes near Paris It was just after our picnic lunch on the Carrefour de Denecourt when Mrs. Easy Hiker started to sing the praises of hiking in the Ile de France, thanking the Hiking Gods for making all local trails so conveniently flat. She hadn’t quite finished her sentence when we went on a steep…
Hiking Trails near Paris Hiking the Marais of Misery You may have heard about Paris, Texas. Today, I will take you a little further east, into the swampy lowlands of the Essonne river, straight into the bayous of Paris, Louisiana. But first, we have to take the train into the Deep South of the Ile…
Hiking trails near Paris Confession time for a hiking blogger What I normally do after our hikes is this: I sit down, on the very same evening, to write down a few lines for later reference, so I will remember what happened when we eventually want to publish the post – which may be weeks,…
Hiking trails near Paris Discover Hiking Rural France It never fails to amaze me how profonde – how deeply, relentlessly rural – France can be as little as one hour away from Paris. Today’s walk – which features some pretty and prosperous farms, some new, some hundreds of years old – could serve as a…
Hiking near Paris The Parisian Banlieue – a term covering anything from just outside of the city limits to villages and small towns a one-hour railway journey away – has a bad reputation, not all of it undeserved. But for every town over which a pallor of tristesse – actually, the bitterness of exile –…
Day Trip from Paris Remember when I took you on an unexpectedly adventurous journey from Pontoise to the outskirts of Auvers sur Oise? And I promised you: no more bad surprises? Today, I am going to keep that promise. The Auvers-sur-Oise Van Gogh knew The first thing you will notice when crossing the bridge into…
Hiking in France We headed back to the Mediterranean for some unfinished business. The Sentier Littoral Revisited Last year, my son and I visited the southern French town of to hike along the Sentier Littoral, the footpath that stretches along the entire length of the country’s coastline. When we inquired at the local tourism office for…
French Riviera Walks How about this… … a short walk through the prettiest town in France, topped off by a visit to one of the world’s most famous gardens, with splendid views over the Mediterranean Sea throughout? Menton, in the extreme southeastern corner of France, combines the best of France – a downtown area of…
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…