easy hiking trails in Europe
Today, we start telling you about the walks we squeezed into the pauses between the various lockdowns over the past six months. This is something we did in October 2020. Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean. You probably knew that already. What you may not have known is that it is also the…
Yes, all will be revealed today, but first, we must complete our tour around the Festival’s host towns and take a close look at the remaining six competition entries. For the first batch of the gardens, see last week’s post where you can also find some more details about this year’s French Riviera Garden Festival….
This would normally be the time to start talking about the walks that we managed to squeeze into the short gaps between the various French lockdowns over the past few months – and we would have done so but for the opposition of circumstance. Events, dear boy, events! The Riviera Garden Festival – 3rd Edition…
Doing something again for the first time after a long and painful break tastes sweet, nearly as sweet as the first kiss that you are receiving from That Special Person In Your Life after a long period of separation. It is therefore only right and proper to treat such sweet returns to the habits and…
So it’s back to lockdown in Europe again, or to “reconfinement” as the French say with their cruel sense of precision and aversion to euphemisms. Not all countries have – like France – already gone back to a full regime of curfews and isolation, but most look sure to follow. We are currently in Sicily,…
Bucket lists are all the rage. You care to find out all about the 1001 Things To See in Outer Mongolia Before You Die? I am sure there is a book or a website somewhere to take you from the World’s Largest Yurt to the Genghis Khan Toenail Museum or whatever. Does anybody ever use…
Travelling, in some ways, is a lot like learning. Done properly, they are lifelong preoccupations. You cannot acquire all the experiences that can be made out there any more than you can find out everything there is to know. And what is more: the mere attempt is a fool’s errand. Much better to paraphrase Socrates:…
Grenoble is the great survivor among French cities. Founded 2000 years ago as a small Gallic settlement around a bridge across the river Isére and relatively difficult to access to this very day (being surrounded by mountains on three sides), it learned to prosper and grow in size and importance by betting on the right…
The High Alps are the best the European countryside has to offer. They are one of Europe’s last genuine wildernesses, bearing only the lightest touch of human hands, majestic and of a sublime beauty. But as always with great beauty, there is a catch. The Alps are not just playing hard to get, they actually are. Hikes on…
The past is a foreign country, as even people know who have not read “The Go-Between” (or seen the movie). But whereas the opening statement of L.P. Hartley’s novel refers to past habits and customs (“they do things differently there”), one can just as easily apply the phrase to the looks and the structures of…