easy hiking trails in Europe
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…
British life is full of riddles. So much so that sometimes it may seem as if it had been purposefully engineered to be misconstrued by naive visitors so that the British themselves can gently chuckle at these foreigners’ lack of sophistication and wit. The hidden rules of British life are as difficult to discern as…
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…
Travelling through Europe means crossing mountains and border lines, lines that have – for whatever reason – survived the medieval warlords who drew them in the sand centuries ago, but also rivers and mountains that, once almost insurmountable, have continued to divide tribes and nations for thousands of years. Borders such as the mountain range…
Alla spiaggia: that shall be the motto for today’s post. Or, to use Henry V as our interpreter: once more onto the beach my friends, once more. This is a seasonal post. But you can do this walk at all times of the year, of course. The trail will not be closed down at the…
One of the best – perhaps the best – thing about travelling in Italy is this: you arrive at your destination and find that everything is better than you felt you had a right to expect. You go to eat in a simple trattoria (or simply buy something from a bakery) and the food is…
River walks are popular, and it is easy to understand why. There is always a variety of scenic motives on show (inland and water landscapes). Villages, boats and other elements of river (bank) traffic provide a constant stream of entertainment. Plus you can concentrate on the sights because the trails are always easy to follow….
What exactly does “easy hiking” mean? Occasionally, people still ask me that question, particularly if they have just received our calling card. One would think that I, after all these years, had developed a one-sentence standard reply, something along the lines of “adventures for beginners” with a bit more meat on the bones, but one…