What is your idea of easy hiking
Easy Hikes in Germany Getting Off at the Hiking Train Station The train station in the West German town of Iserlohn is officially labelled a Wanderbahnhof, a “hiking train station”. When I came across that term for the first time, I was as clueless as you are now. It turns out that once a year,…
Easy Hiking in the South of France Oligarch for a Day in Cap Martin One thing many people know about the French Riv is that it’s for millionaires only. When I told my 87-year-old mum, God bless her, that we were moving there, she cried. She could not help it, she explained: the thought of…
Walks near Paris An Evocative Riverside Walk The Marne for the Parisians is a mythical river, evoking lazy Sunday afternoons, boat trips, riverbank parties and men in jaunty hats straight out of a painting by Renoir. But above all, the Marne evokes the presence of the legendary guinguettes, small drinking places that serve local white…
Easy Hikes in Germany The Erzbahn – A Railtrack Hiking Trail Some hiking trails have always been hiking trails, and there is nothing wrong with that. Others, however, have a history behind them: itinerant tradesmen may have been using them for centuries to carry their wares from village to village, or the trail gives you…
Walks in the Netherlands A Pleasant Urban Promenade in Utrect The modern world was born in the Netherlands: this small country at the edge of Europe, forever at risk of sliding into the Atlantic Ocean, was the first that was run for and on behalf of its citizens. Today, we take this form of government…
Walks near Paris A Fine Weather Walk in Maur-Creteil There are many ways to categorize hikes or walks. You can, for example, classify them on the basis of the kind of shoes you will have to wear (proper hiking boots – or will a pair of comfy trainers do?); on what you need to take…
Easy Hiking in the French Riviera The View from the Roquebrune Castle Life on the French Riviera has not always been sweet – at least not for everyone, not all of the time. Life was certainly not sweet for the inhabitants of Roquebrune Castle that we found (just to the east of Monaco) on one of our recent…
Hiking in the South of France Eze it may be, but easy it certainly ain’t. Not for a certain Eze hiker In fact, the trail from Eze-sur-mer, the small town around Eze railway station between Nice and Monaco on the French Riviera, to “Eze village” up in the hills is just one steep stairway, up…
Easy hiking in the South of France Roquebrune I might as well admit it: walking – or hiking – is not always and under all circumstances the best key for unlocking unfamiliar destinations. You can, for example, get a good first impression of the French Riviera just by taking the eastbound local train from Cannes:…
Walks near Paris We Went Climbing Mont Valerien All right, Mont Valerien may not be much of a mountain, but one cannot dispute that, semantically, it belongs to the same family as Mont Blanc (whereas the Butte Montmartre and the Butte de Belleville in Paris are mere “hills”). And it is, with an altitude of 162 metres…