Underneath and between the City’s futuristic skyscrapers, a 2000 year old structure is still weaving its way I suspect that some of you may have heard about the Berlin Wall. I also believe that far fewer will be aware that London has a wall, too – which was equally the product of a foreign invasion…
Berlin’s Tempelhof airport has been turned into a paradise for cyclists, windsurfers, wild birds, crazy golfers, baseball fans – and walkers Hiking, in a certain way, is like listening to popular music – because, let’s face it, most hikes do not really offer anything strikingly original like something you have never seen before, but rather…
Themed Walks in London A walk through the “Florence of the 21st Century” The City of London is where most of the capital’s truly iconic works of modernist architecture are concentrated, but West London, too, has many fine new buildings. The big difference is this: while London’s business district provides a homogeneous context of brashness…
A walk through Skyscraper National Park: the world’s most exciting collection of modern architectural masterpieces There are many good reasons to visit London: for its world-class theatres, its magnificent pubs, or to pay a visit to the Queen. Here is another one: the town’s unique collection of modernist architecture. This has not always been so….
The Foro Italico manages to combine the ludicrous with the appalling. It is found in the north of Rome and is, in a way, the most incredible thing I have ever seen. Imagine a monument constructed by the Nazis for the glorification of Adolf Hitler and his achievements that for some reason survived WWII –…
A walk through the EUR district demonstrates that bad governments can have amazingly good taste. Rome is one of the few cities in the world that have never been entirely redone – unlike Paris and London, for example, both very old cities, too (although not quite as old as Rome) which today consist largely of…
Things to See in Germany Stumbling Upon the Ronald McDonald Gehry House of Oeynhausen Bad Oeynhausen has many things for easy hikers to enjoy – a river, a canal and lakes for a waterside walk, a forest with a deer enclosure and a park that is stuffed with classicist monuments. And what’s more, to complement and…
Churches – Europe is so full of them because, for centuries, they were the focal points of community life, much like football and baseball stadiums are in the modern world. If you go hiking a lot in Europe, pay attention to the architecture and see if you can you pick out the different styles of the Churches…
Hiking trails near Paris The Parisian banlieue has a bad reputation, not all of it undeserved. At its worst, the urban sprawl beyond the Parisian city limits is an uncomfortable and possibly even dangerous place (for those of you who haven’t seen the movie La Haine, think of the South Bronx or Tower Hamlets), while most…
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…