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…
Hiking Reads Summer has – finally! – arrived in Europe, and not a moment too soon, just in time for the peak of the holiday season. For hikers, however, temperatures above 30° centigrade (that’s the high 80s and 90s for you) are a mixed blessing. For some trails, perhaps even for all trails, this is…
Holidays in the Netherlands Biking or Hiking At the end of our visit to the Netherlands, I finally had to concede defeat. We were leaving the country in the sad realization that the Dutch will never take to hiking in a major way. Never will hiking be the preferred choice of the Dutch for moving about…
A Hiking Guide Book “26 Gorgeous Hikes on the Western Cote d’Azur” I have come across many a hiking guide book in my time, good ones and bad ones in sufficient numbers that I feel qualified not only to tell the difference but also to identify the criteria on which an assessment like this may be…
Unsmiling French Gardens Foreigners in France – and that includes expats – display a surprisingly wide range of opinions about their host country. For every Francophobe who detests everything the country stands for, there is a Francophile for whom France can do no wrong, and there are, of course, hundreds of different shades of opinion…
The Right Hiking Waterproof Outdoor Jacket For years, I had been priding myself on owning the cheapest of what I believed was a waterproof outdoor jacket in town. It had cost me 10 bucks and came from a supermarket chain that normally sells discount groceries and only extends its range of products temporarily when it…
Walking in Paris Unable to plan a day hike recently, the Easy Hikers decided instead to take a short walk in a cold drizzly romantic Paris, following the “trail” most couples would do along the Avenue des Champs–Élysées leading up to the Concorde and the Jardins des Tuileries. Cold Drizzly Romantic Paris Planning a romantic getaway in…
A Totally Different Christmas Market What would Christmas be without Christmas markets? These fairs with their arts and crafts stalls, handmade candles, sticky candies and mulled wine have become such an integral part of the Western Christmas experience that we tend to forget how pagan they actually are – as pagan as, well, a Christmas…
Help Promote Better Child Protection Third World Travel that involves better child protection The arguments for and against traveling to 3rd world countries are very similar to the ones for and against buying clothes from Bangla Desh. No, say some: to do so inevitably means supporting unsustainable and at times downright inhuman practices. But, say…
Coastal Hikes in Spain A Fishing Village along the Cami de Ronda Cannes, Portofino, Benidorm – nearly all of the famous Mediterranean beach resorts, whether classy or downmarket, were once humble fishing villages. In some parts of the Mediterranean, there is nothing that could remind the visitor of this tradition – in others, there may…