Get a feel for France profonde an hour away from Paris in Santeuil (Val d’Oise). Take this Paris hiking trail in the Valley of the Viosne. Have a break from the shopping and sight seeing you’ve done in the City of Lights and breath the French countryside.
Serendipity is a wonderful thing. The dictionary defines it as “finding something good without looking for it”. The concept apparently has a long tradition in the history of science and discovery, but is – in my view – specifically useful as a strategy for exploring a new or even an already familiar place: instead of…
Muenster The world record holder of backwards running is from Muenster NRW. But that is not what makes it worth a detour if you are already visiting Duesseldorf, Cologne, Bonn or Aachen. (Perhaps you’re also on an easy hike in the nearby Hermannshoehen trail?) Muenster is a charming town that is not short on historical significance. …
Not all villages in Provence were built high up on a hill around a castle or an ancient cathedral, although sometimes it may seem that way. This has more to do with the logic of international tourism than the actual settlement patterns of the local folks. Most villages and small towns in southern France, after…
Day Trip from Paris The White House Le Corbusier Built I am not a great fan of art museums – mainly because I have hardly ever learned anything from looking at a picture on a museum wall that I had not already learned from looking at a good reproduction in a book. Architecture, however, is…
Urban walks in the South of France A French Riviera Walk in Nice For You Tracing the footsteps of an adventurous friar, the ancient Romans and Queen Victoria Today’s post is some sort of a post-scriptum to our brief series of seasonal promenades along the Cote d’Azur: a walk that we discovered only recently, in…
What have the Romans ever done for the French Riviera? Not much, it appears. For our first proper walk of the year – one involving a forest, “big sky views” and mud under our feet – we picked a theatre of ancient local history. You would be surprised how difficult it can be to find real…
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Leigh, that was taken over this week-end during our day hike in Santeuil an hour away from Paris. We’ve been enjoying a long stretch of warm spring days. Sorry to hear Vancouver is still grey. But spring will get to you, not to worry.
I don’t know when you took that picture but it sure looks pretty and peaceful – oh and sunny too – something we haven’t seen for what feels like months in grey and rainy Vancouver.