easy hikes and city walks in Italy
Travel destinations can be broadly divided in two categories: the “hedgehogs“ that know how to do one thing only (but know this one thing very well), and the “foxes” that know many things. If hedgehogs – say the Niagara Falls and Venice – were books, they would be like detective stories: no matter how much…
Hiking in Italy – interrupt me if I have told you this before – can be an exasperating experience. Far too often, you are distracted from the beauty of the scenery by the need to ward off evil trolls who seem determined to test your orienteering skills or, just as frequently, your fortitude and your…
Livorno has a bad reputation. It is the third largest city in Tuscany and the province’s “gateway to the Mediterranean“ (as the biggest city and largest port on the Tuscan coast). You will rarely find it being mentioned in the same breath as Lucca or Arezzo, the leading lights in the second or “worth a…
No trip to Elba would be complete without a search of time past: a visit to places that are associated with the island’s most famous ever resident. A Bonaparte Pilgrimage Walk might feature stations all across the island: the central highlands with Napoleon’s summer residence in San Martino, for example, the west with the residence…
After our first foray into the spectacularly beautiful landscapes of Elba – a coastal walk, nominally, but one which turned out to involve quite a lot of climbing – we were a little apprehensive before our second tour on our itinerary. This route, after all, was to take us all the way up to Marciana…
Elba’s most famous visitor stayed on the island for roughly one year. He left, eventually (although he always emphasized how much he had enjoyed the experience), in search for a better job on the mainland. This did, in the end, not turn out very well for him (he lost his new job after a probation…
The charms of Southern Piemonte – as we saw last week – may be rich and many, but a beautiful landscape is not one of them. Most of Southern Piemonte consists of flat, endless fields, so your best bet for a day trip is a town walk. The historically most interesting town in the area…
A few posts ago I told you what made Italy, for us, the perfect travel destination: that wherever you go, no matter how unfancy the place may seem, you will find something beautiful and interesting. Last week, we decided to put that to the test. The county of Southern Piemonte is one of Italy’s forgotten…
A couple of years ago, we posted a short series of winter walks, arguing that there was a special type of walk which is particularly well-suited to the conditions and requirements of that season. As I said in so many words at that time, a typical winter walk must meet two conditions: it must be…
Once upon a time, Genoa was a global power. The city republic was one of the most influential and dominant players around the Mediterranean Sea and across Europe, with far-ranging interests in both the Old World and the New, in the Orient as well as in America. As a consequence, the Genoese became rich and…