What is your idea of easy hiking
Guest Post You thought that, when going hiking, missing the last bus home and leaks in the water bottle that ruin your backpack and everything inside were the biggest risks on the sort of tame outdoor “adventure” that we regularly advertise in these parts? Wrong – as you will find out in the following guest…
Untouched nature in the French Riviera coast is rare, but it exists. As Exhibit One, we present today’s post. Untouched nature – where it exists – is also, as a rule, well hidden. To find the lush green valley that provides the scenery for this week’s hike, you must go to the back of the…
Bussana Vecchia has a mixed press. For every admirer on TripAdvisor and similar social media sites who calls the small ghost town north of Sanremo “a picturesque artists’ colony”, you can find someone who left unimpressed, calling the place “unbearably twee” or “soulless and commercial”. Whichever way your own opinion may fall, it is undeniable…
It is a truth locally acknowledged – among people who live near the Riviera coast, whether permanently or temporarily – that every trip to the region should include at least some hiking in the mountains. Most of these people are – like us – residents of the coast themselves and would not think of settling…
Guest Post The British are a nation of hikers or as they would say “walkers.” This is testified to in the well-maintained network of public footpaths crisscrossing across the country like a huge spider web. Only in Scotland does the multitude of paths disappear. This is where the right to roam kicks in and the…
A few weeks ago, we climbed the mountains overlooking Monaco (the Tête de Chien) and Eze (Mont Bastide). On Easter Sunday, we turned our attention to the steep hills of Menton and tackled one that overlook our adopted home town. When I wrote late last year that climbing some of the Riviera peaks would be…
Last week, we told you about hikes – easy ones and not so easy ones – in the rugged Regional Nature Reserve between Camogli and Portofino. Today, we will stay in the Riviera di Levante (the coast east of Genoa), but for a much more civilized contrast programme. You can bring your lazy old dog,…
It actually pains me to write it down, being a “local patriot” who considers the Italian Riviera west of Genoa as his playground and friendly neighbour. But here it goes: in the highlight reel of the Italian Riviera, the East End has all the good bits. A trip to the east of Genoa feels very…
It was Mrs. Easy Hiker who drew my attention to the site. I wonder what these ruins are, she mused: not once, not twice, but repeatedly, and in the end – when that had failed to stir me into action or at least a bout of in-depth research – almost every time we passed the…
If you have ever visited the Italian Riviera, aka Liguria, one of the things you will fondly remember is the train that connects the various small resort towns along the coast. This train is not one of those fancy high-speed bullet numbers that dash through the countryside. Instead, it takes its time – this is…