Here is a strange thing: some neighbouring cities, although physically very close to each other, have a totally different look and feel. Take Nîmes and Arles, two close neighbours in the south of France. They share, inevitably, some characteristics, but it is the differences that stick out. Arles is the quintessential small town in Provence:…
When I was a boy, my home town’s local TV station carried a French adventure series that was set in the wild marshlands of the Camargue. There were a lot of wild horses, water buffaloes and cool guys riding white steeds bareback through the spray, but other than that, I have no recollection of what…
For a man of his generation and relatively modest means, the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh certainly got around a lot in Europe, spending time in Amsterdam and The Hague, Brussels, London and Paris. It is the south of France, however, which had the deepest impact on the artist’s soul and on his works. The…
Whatever happened to Old Aspremont? It was all a very long time ago. Modern-day Aspremont – approx. 15 km to the north of Nice – is a picturesque and quiet little place, one of a dozen or so “perched villages” on the list of visitors’ recommendations issued by the Nice tourism office. But there is…
There are nature walks and there are town walks, and rarely the twain shall meet: trees, mountains and birdsong for one, historic buildings and traffic fumes for the other. But there are also walks that challenge you to work out which is which: to determine where nature ends and where the “town“ of human culture…
Among the peaks of the Riviera, the Mont des Mules enjoys a special place. Not because of its height: at 291 metres, it is little more than a pimple on the landscape. Its long and varied history reaches back into pre-Roman times and includes the episode when, in 1909, the municipality of Beausoleil (to which…
I told you it was going to be a sunny day. Which was no mere coincidence, of course. In fact, we let several days go by since the lockdown in our area had been lifted. Because there was no way we would let our first post-Covid 19 walk since what felt more like an imprisonment…
Hiking in the time of the Coronavirus. That could be the shortest post I would have ever written, consisting of nothing but a blank page. Actually, one could spin that off into an entire book – one of those novelty issues where empty page follows empty page: “The Great German Book of Humour”. ” Fine…
Most of our Riviera walks are intended for “slow travellers” who do not want or need to pack as much as is humanly possible into a two-day trip. Who love walking for its own sake. Who appreciate the arts and architecture. Who travel either alone or in a group of like-minded adults. Today’s walk belongs…
Last week, John and Julie asked us to take them on a walk. We had met John and Julie for the first time shortly after our arrival in Menton, nearly seven years ago. They were already familiar with our little corner of the world back then, but freely admit that they still have relatively little…