Mulhouse – Three Countries, the Past and the Present
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Mulhouse – Three Countries, the Past and the Present

If you travel a lot in Europe, there is a good chance that you will, sooner or later, pass through EuroAirport. This airport – which is located near prime hiking areas such as Lake Constance and the Black Forest and used a lot by low-cost airlines including Wizz and Easyjet – is the only airport…

Bordeaux and its Wines – The Town
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Bordeaux and its Wines – The Town

Bordeaux in the sunny southwest of France is the unofficial wine capital of the world. The label of “Bordeaux”, however, under which the locally produced wines are distributed across the world and which has earned the city its fame, only serves to indicate the name of the place where these wines have been stored, blended…

Lakeside Trail of Orta: Discover an Instagram Town’s Beautiful Soul
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Lakeside Trail of Orta: Discover an Instagram Town’s Beautiful Soul

At first glance, the small lakeside town of Orta – located roughly 70 km north of Milan at the foot of the Italian Alps – comes across as a typical Instagram town: beautiful … … but perhaps a little too confident in the expectation that her many admirers will be so dazzled by her looks…

Vercelli is the Winner in the Battle of Town Walk vs. Country Hike
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Vercelli is the Winner in the Battle of Town Walk vs. Country Hike

The Easy Hikers have been going on country hikes and urban walks in roughly even proportions for well over 10 years now, and I still cannot decide which of the two I would go for if I could pick only one. Simply stated, the problem is this: a good country hike beats a good urban…

Rebuild That Wall: A New Dimension for the “Lecce Experience”
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Rebuild That Wall: A New Dimension for the “Lecce Experience”

For many years, Lecce was the only major tourist destination in the entire mezzogiorno, the bottom of the Italian boot south of Naples. The town likes to style itself as the “Florence of the South” and can bolster this claim with some great architecture from different periods … … but particularly with its richly decorated…

Jewels in the Crown of the Prince of Darkness
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Jewels in the Crown of the Prince of Darkness

Genoa, “La Superba”, proudly stands apart from the rest of the country – and, in many ways, does not feel like an Italian city at all. It is neither elegant (like Milan) nor full of joie de vivre (like Naples), and it is certainly not an open-air museum where everything has been neatly arranged for…

Regent’s Canal of London : The Bleak and the Beautiful
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Regent’s Canal of London : The Bleak and the Beautiful

Scenic walks in urban environments come in one of two guises: they take you either through a cartoon version of nature that has been carefully designed for the delight of urbanites or through feral landscapes – abandoned “brownfield sites” such as railway lines, port installations and industrial depots – that have been reclaimed by nature….

Get Surprises from Santa Claus in Bari
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Get Surprises from Santa Claus in Bari

Bari, the largest city on the Adriatic coast, is not a mandatory stop on the Great Italian Tourist Trail. No Renaissance masterpieces are on public display, the town’s history does not feature names that you would recognize from old High School lessons, and you will not see reflections of magnificent medieval architecture in the sparkling…