What is your idea of easy hiking
Italian cities share a family likeness that is – like all family likenesses – easier to recognise than to define. Is it the colours (above all, the blend of rich yellows), the delicately balanced proportions, the trompe l’oeil effects, the distinctly classical architectural features? It is probably a little bit from all of that. No…
There are enough hiking trails on the eastern side of Lake Como to keep you busy for more than a week. The most popular of the lot is probably the Sentiero del Viandante, a 70-km-long lakeside trail between Lecco and Morbegno at the foot of the Alps. On our first day at the lake, I…
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our friends and readers! New Adventures for Beginners in 2026 will take us into the hidden world of France’s second city … … up and down the riverside of the European capital of Rock’n Roll … … and into newly created open spaces of somewhere closer…
You can easily spend a long weekend and more exploring the charms and attractions of Anglesey. But, if you must, you can also experience all in one day, enjoying everything that the island has to offer in a single package: Anglesey’s medieval history, … … its rugged natural beauty, … … mysterious Welsh traditions, ……
Wales and Brittany have more in common than bad weather: both regions were once run as independent countries and then gobbled up by stronger neighbours (England and France, respectively). This happened almost a thousand years ago, but both Wales and Brittany are still sitting a little awkwardly in the countries to which they have belonged…
Nantes is one of France’s great provincial cities and stands – in the minds of the French – for the Atlantic West as Marseille stands for the South and Strasbourg for the East. Foreign visitors may be familiar with the city as the entry point to two of the country’s most famous tourist regions: Brittany,…
Holidays are full of surprises! Or at least, they should be because that, after all, is the very essence of a break: to abandon your every-day routines and their dull predictability. Not all surprises can be pleasant, of course, but the bad surprises are the price we have to pay for the travel experiences we…
If we have so far – with last week’s post and the dispatches from our previous trip to Brittany – given you the impression that this corner of north-western France is all stone, sunshine and dramatic rock formations, then today’s visit to the Ile Grande provides the perfect opportunity for setting things straight. This island…
All walks are different but the most interesting ones fall into one of three broad categories. First of all, there are mountain walks, which – to use a musical analogy – are a lot like opera. Full of excitement and drama, they always make you anticipate the next narrative twist along the route in the…
Do you like to uncover mysteries? To search for hidden truths? To scratch the veneer of appearances to see what has so carefully been concealed from you? f the answer to that is yes, then the Polish city of Wroclaw is the perfect destination for you. Over there, in the German-Polish borderlands, you will find…