A Visit to Au Vieux Campeur in Paris Let’s get this out of the way now. This is NOT a sponsored post. I have not received a Euro cent (or a penny) from Au Vieux Campeur in Paris, and not a free book or a free map either. In fact, the Vieux Campeur is…
Easy hiking in Germany I’m sure you will agree. To visit the mountains without getting to the summit of one is like traveling to the sea without dipping as much as your toe into the water. So when we recently visited the Harz mountains in northern Germany and had no time to climb the Brocken…
Where to Go in Germany An Old Peep Show Machine In the age before computers and video games, itinerant amusement parks in the 30s to the 50s were the place kids and adults could have some fun. At the end of our day hike on the Siebengebirge south of Bonn in Germany, we chanced upon these…
Day Trip from Paris Memories of Two World Wars The highlight of our day hike in Compiegne was the visit to the Musee de l’Armistice to view some of the relics of two world wars. Aside from the monument erected to honour the war dead, we saw relics of two world wars that were on display too….
Day Trip from Paris Here’s What Hitler did in Compiegne One hour away from Paris lies the quiet provincial town of Compiegne where not one but two recent chapters of European history were completed. If the 30 Year European War from 1914 to 1945 was a drama in five acts, Compiegne was the stage of…
In Memory of Angelique Dumetz The day we chose to hike in Compiegne was perfectly sunny and hot as any summer day considering Autumn has already arrived. We were jauntily reaching the end of the first half of the trail when we saw, alongside the trail, this “tomb” or what we took as one. It…
Youth hostels have, for the past few years, working hard to edge into the lower end of the tourism market. But are they a viable alternative to discount hotels? How Hostels Compare with Discount Hotels I already posted a few lines here about European non-profit Youth Hostels in general, but on the occasion of our…
Transport Tips for Germany Getting Cheapest Train Tickets in Germany Over the years, the Deutsche Bahn has been trying to improve their online services at www.db.de. Today, you can now conduct a transaction in at least 10 languages. Language aside, though, what may be self-evident to its regular online customers might be missed by those who…
Transport Tips for Germany Cheapest Train Ticket in Germany Last year, we gave Deutsche Bahn a bit more than €600 to ferry our family of 4, plus dog, from our holiday base in West Germany to the city of Erfurt in the East, and back. This year, we only spent €120 for our round-trip to…
Hiking and the German Concept of Wellness At first glance, they are not the easiest of bedfellows, yet they seem to be moving closer together all the time. The term wellness originally comes from alternative medicine: more than a hundred years ago, some doctors wanted to embed physical fitness in a more holistic understanding of…