What is your idea of easy hiking
We continue with our tips on how to get most out of your short trip to Nice In contrast to the mountainside, the Riviera’s other great area of wilderness, the Mediterranean Sea does not require its prospective visitors to embark on a long and protracted journey: it is always there, at most a few hundred…
Holidays would be different if we had unlimited amounts of time for them, but we do not. So they are what they are, which largely means: always too short. As a rule of thumb, the more affluent people are, the more often they will go on a vacation, but – since the time available for…
I don’t know about you, but whenever we come across a town that has been labeled a City of the Arts, I get a queasy feeling in my stomach. From experience I know that all too often, this means grim medieval palazzi and stuffy churches that have been packed with dark, baffling and impenetrable paintings…
Today, we will start our second set of walks in Emilia-Romagna. In contrast to the first group of hikes that we posted a few weeks ago – which were full day trips – the shorter walks from this second group require less of a commitment and take a much smaller chunk out of your holiday…
Hiking in Italy, like so much else in this sweet and lovely country, is by turns an exasperating and wonderful experience. Whether you are getting one or the other is largely determined by the kind of people who are in charge of the town or municipal district you are visiting. Some towns could clearly not…
Two scenic train rides from Nice into its alpine back country are on the itinerary of most Riviera visits: the Train des Merveilles (to Tende near the Italian frontier) and the Train des Pignes (to Digne-les-Bains in the northwest). Ticking off the Train des Merveilles from our own travel schedule was one of the first things we…
Of all the major European countries, Italy has always appeared to me the most culturally uniform. There is little that connects the baroque splendours of Catholic Bavaria with the Protestant restraint of Germany’s Hanseatic North and little common ground between Strasbourg and Nice, but there is an “Italianate-ness” of streets and buildings that is immediately…
Organized bus trips, for all their benefits, have one major drawback: they are not purpose-made for hiking, and any opportunity they may offer for a walk is purely coincidental At best, you can find the space for a brief excursion, but at worst, you are virtually stuck in the bus for the whole day. You…
When go hiking on the French Riviera, there are good reasons for preferring either the coast or the mountainous arrière pays. One possible reason for going one way or the other is undoubtedly the right psychological “match” between hiker and route. The coast at its best is friendly and open, but can also be loud,…
Once they were giants – Breil and the Roya River. From the train, Breil-sur-Roya looks incongruously large and imposing, with its tree lined riverside avenue and two large churches in the centre of town. Located in that part of the border country between France and Italy that is characterized by perched hilltop villages and their nervous…