easy hiking trails in Europe
Why yearn for faraway countries when so much beauty is close at hand? I would love to say that we went to explore the Parc du Cap Martin on the French Riviera inspired by these famous words of Goethe, but the truth is far more prosaic: a friend had invited us for a drink in…
“Parma as a capital city needed a river”, said the Italian poet Artilio Bertolucci (the father of the internationally famous and Oscar-winning film director), “but since it is was only a small capital of an undistinguished Duchy, all it got was a torrente.” Torrenti are so unfamiliar in Northern European countries that most of the…
Today, we will be offering you: a lake that looks occasionally like a piece from the Amazon jungle … … a river that looks occasionally like a canal … … a gem of an old town with plenty of interesting views and motives … … and a spate of horses, largely in one shape and…
After the 12th century hydraulic engineer Alberto Pitentino had surrounded Mantua with a network of artificial lakes on three sides, he went on to complete the ring of water around the old town by adding a canal in the south, providing merchants and traders with both a fresh water resource and a cross-town transport route….
The north Italian city of Mantua is that rare thing, a town entirely surrounded by water. Three lakes and a river … … provide a luxuriant setting of natural beauty for the architectural gem in their middle, turning Mantua – quite literally – into a treasure island. In view of such a magnificent and stunning…
Last week, we discovered that the “Cézanne Walk” in the artist’s home town of Aix-en-Provence is not the perfect route to finding out more about his paintings. We shall be making up for that today, venturing a little out of town for a “pilgrimage of artistic discovery” to a place which is, more than anything…
For many years, Aix-en-Provence had cornered the market for Picturesque Market Towns In Southern France. Easy-to-reach (just over an hour by train from Marseille) and pretty-to-look-at, it ticks all the important boxes for visitors. If you came from Northern Europe or North America and wanted to see a Typical Town In Provence, old men playing…
How many forests must a man walk down before you can call him a hiker? I have no idea. But here is something I do know. Long before you have reached even half that figure, you will have experienced a case of “hikers’ dejà vu”: the feeling that you have walked down the same forest-dash-coast…
The north German city of Lübeck was very much built “on the waterfront”. But which water would that be? This is far from clear because there is a confusing variety of rivers, canals and natural waterways that all serve to connect the city to the Baltic Sea as well as to other sea ports. If…
Thomas Mann was the world’s last great pre-modern novelist (with works such as Death in Venice and The Magic Mountain). He is also the perfect guide through the streets of his hometown of Lübeck, perhaps the most beautiful and historically important European city that you have never heard of. What makes Lübeck such a rewarding…