In today’s world, what is a traditional building? Here is something about Eastern and Central Europe (the countries that used to lie behind the former Iron Curtain) that many of you may not know: most of the locals that you meet in the streets are no more intimate than you with their cities’ fantastic urban…
Biot is that rare thing of a Riviera hilltop town: as unassuming, authentic and unspoilt as you can expect any town in this part of the world to be The stretch between Antibes and Nice Airport is, without a doubt, the ugliest section of the Cote d’Azur: on the one side of the road and…
Picasso spent the last 12 years of his life here, but there are many other reasons to visit this hilltop village north of Cannes. If the French Riviera is not exclusively famous for being a playground of people with more money than sense – from 19th century Russian aristocrats via eccentric East Coast heiresses during…
Today, we shall make one last visit to the South West Coast Path, albeit one with a difference. On this stretch of the trail, you will (probably) meet more people than on all of the other stages together and (certainly) see more concrete, too, but what this part of the path may lack in scenic…
… whether you are interested in the history of landscaping or not … parks and public gardens reflect the times in which they were created no less than buildings do, because tastes in landscaping vary as much as architectural ones. In theory, it may be possible to adapt a landscaped garden to a newly emerging…
The Piemontese hills may provide a picturesque backdrop, but it is in the flat countryside where the city’s lifeblood flows To the casual observer, it may seem that the countryside in and around Turin is mainly Alpine in nature. The Alps indeed seem to be everywhere … … but while they undoubtedly attract the eye,…
Meet two of modern Italy’s founding fathers, a two-faced royal mansion and the world’s tallest museum In addition to the San Michele hike from our last post, we have prepared two more tours in Turin for you: one “town” walk and one “country” walk, both of them relatively short (with lengths of two to three…
Elsewhere in the world, the word may be that “the Russians are coming”; in the coastal region between Nice and Sanremo, they have arrived long ago and been part of the local communities for well over 150 years Once upon a time, before the advent of satellite TV dishes and the world-wide web, immigrants, even…
200 years after the event, we followed the Emperor and his army on the first stage of their walk back to Paris and to Waterloo On 1 March 1815, the recently deposed Emperor Napoleon landed with a small band of 1000 loyal soldiers in Golfe Juan near Cannes, arriving from his exile in Elba to…
On the basis of the evidence, it feels safe to say that the Empire’s troops did not come here to enjoy the beautiful beaches The history of the Riviera, if we are honest, begins in the 17th century when its oldest towns were built, and it really picks up 200 years later with the invention…