Last week, we discovered that the “Cézanne Walk” in the artist’s home town of Aix-en-Provence is not the perfect route to finding out more about his paintings. We shall be making up for that today, venturing a little out of town for a “pilgrimage of artistic discovery” to a place which is, more than anything…
For many years, Aix-en-Provence had cornered the market for Picturesque Market Towns In Southern France. Easy-to-reach (just over an hour by train from Marseille) and pretty-to-look-at, it ticks all the important boxes for visitors. If you came from Northern Europe or North America and wanted to see a Typical Town In Provence, old men playing…
This week’s walk is, at first glance, a carbon copy of last week’s: we take a walk along the Loire, … … see a beautiful castle … … and visit a historical little town that was built in its shadow. What’s more: the centrepiece of the walk is another river island in between the train…
Hiking and cycling make good bedfellows. There are only a few areas where you see one and not the other – even in high altitudes on rugged terrain where mountain bikers have become ever more prominent over the past decade. One exception is the Valley of the Loire in central France. This valley is famous…
Dijon is not a one-bird town. Having introduced you last week to the Martin-Pecheur, the kingfisher who is occasionally spotted near the trail that has been named in his honour, we will tell you today about the other bird that is associated with the capital of Burgundy: the owl. In contrast to the Martin-Pecheur, however,…
Some city destinations provide barely enough distraction for a single morning – you walk around, have lunch and find yourself walking down the same streets again in the afternoon. But there are those that only whet your appetite, making you want to come back for more, again and again. There is always something you have…
Throughout history, few large cities in the world have managed without a navigable waterway, but there are some whose river or canal passes out of sight and out of town, through countryside or distant suburbs. (Milan is an example for this, as is – more surprisingly, perhaps – Vienna). This applies to Strasbourg as well,…
Yes, all will be revealed today, but first, we must complete our tour around the Festival’s host towns and take a close look at the remaining six competition entries. For the first batch of the gardens, see last week’s post where you can also find some more details about this year’s French Riviera Garden Festival….
Doing something again for the first time after a long and painful break tastes sweet, nearly as sweet as the first kiss that you are receiving from That Special Person In Your Life after a long period of separation. It is therefore only right and proper to treat such sweet returns to the habits and…
Grenoble is the great survivor among French cities. Founded 2000 years ago as a small Gallic settlement around a bridge across the river Isére and relatively difficult to access to this very day (being surrounded by mountains on three sides), it learned to prosper and grow in size and importance by betting on the right…
