easy hiking trails in Europe
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,…
In these bleak mid-winter days of sleet, snow and icy winds: what could possibly bring more joy than a trip to a place where you can still feel the breath of summer on your neck, a place where, while the season’s paraphernalia (parasols and pleasure boats) may have been mothballed, the spirit of summer is…
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…
Let’s say you have spent a few days in Edinburgh, seen everything that you wanted to see and find that you have a day to spare – and, rather than going to a museum or walking up and down the same city streets again, feel like venturing out of town for a day trip: what…
I know it may hard to believe for dedicated easy hikers, but thousands of visitors pass through Edinburgh every year without setting foot on either the Water of Leith Walkway or Arthur’s Seat, preferring to spend their days in and around the Old Town and its neighbouring districts. They surely are missing something, but so…
Most cities in the world were founded near a body of water, and for most old cities, this body of water was a river that provided fresh water, a transport connection to the wider world and a handy sewage disposal system. Edinburgh ticks the latter of these boxes, but having said that, it is equally…