easy hiking trails in Europe
The French Riviera would be as beautiful, culturally much poorer without its long history of eccentric Anglo-Saxons With its richly articulated coastline, its pretty coastal villages, its bays and its boats, its nearly perennial sunshine and pleasant temperatures all year round, the French Riviera is a truly blessed spot. But just to prove that nothing…
Théoule-sur-Mer may lack the glamour and urban flair of some of its coastal neighbours in the East, but has a nice little walk attached to it Looking back over the Easy Hiker posts from the last six months or so, it strikes me how few of them refer to anything that we have done on…
… at Milan’s Cimitero Monumentale But there are cracks in the bombast, and you can feel how a very modern sense of discomfort is creeping in. For centuries, death operated a strict two-tier system: cathedral tombs it was for crowned heads and high clergy, the local churchyard for everybody else. (Unless you were a certified…
The provincial capital of Bolzano has a long history, rich cultural attractions – and even some lessons for all of us. One thing is for sure when you go hiking in the Gardena Valley: sooner or later you will come to Bolzano, in nearly all respects the hub of the province, if only between trips…
… with the sound of sizzling frying pans on our Selva-to-Monte-Pana hike in the Dolomites Something I forgot to mention in the report from our first hike in the Dolomites: for the hiking guides, that hike served as their “orientation tour”, intended not only to familiarize the hotel’s newbie guests with the landscape but also to…
In terms of drama, scale and majestic beauty, few areas in Europe can rival the Italian Dolomites For us, one way of rating the quality of our hikes is simply to count the number of pictures that we have brought home. On some of our hikes in the past, we have made no more than…
Seven outstanding facts about the church of St John the Baptist in Xewkija. On our last day in Gozo, we simply had to make the trip to the church we had dubbed the “Sacre Coeur”, a large rotunda a couple of kilometres behind the ferry port: after all, we had lived in the shadow of…
A pilgrimage to the Ta’ Pinu Church and the Way of the Cross may help you acquire a deeper understanding of Gozo’s profound religiosity. One thing that no visitor of Gozo can fail to notice is the native Gozitans’ love for sculpture – and their refreshing lack of respect for (or even fear of) the…
There is more than one way of experiencing Gozo’s gorgeous coastline The main feature of Gozo’s landscape is, of course, its coastline – Gozo is an island, after all, and not a very big one at that, so the Mediterranean Sea is not only all around it but can also be seen from almost anywhere:…
… and what to expect from them: quaint country lanes, magnificent churches and majestic views over the Mediterranean Sea. Hikers can experience the island of Gozo on seven hiking trails that have been laid out and marked (fairly efficiently) by the Malta Tourism Authority. All walks come with a dedicated leaflet (featuring a map, photos…