The Lago Maggiore is, despite what its name appears to suggest, not the largest body of water in the Italian “Lake District” (that honour goes to Lake Garda), but it is the most stretched-out. The shortest route around it is 170 km long, and more than 60 km lie between Arona in the south and…
Piacenza, says one of my guide books for Northern Italy, is known as the “City of Bricks”, but this, I believe, does not quite hit the mark. It is it true that many buildings in town, including some grand architectural statements of Church and State, have been constructed from that relatively humble material … ……
This is a post, above all, in praise of the Italian town of Lodi near Milan. However, It is also a post in praise of all those other Lodis across the world, unassuming places into which travellers only ever stumble by chance. These places have so much to offer, and travels would be so much…
Sometimes, it is best to know little or nothing about the destination you are about to visit: this allows you to keep the option open of surprising yourself. Sometimes, however, a little knowledge can help – and feel like adding a key ingredient to the sauce that turns a pleasant but bland meal into something…
Today’s post is all about the best walk to have a perfect day in Nice, so good that it is well worth dedicating an entire day to it. You start in the morning walking into the town centre via the Promenade des Anglais (all the way from the Parc Phoenix tram stop, if you can…
Nice and Paris – the two most visited cities in France – make up an odd couple. In almost every way you look at them, they are the antithesis of each other. Above all, the two are distinguished by the weather, of course: unpredictable and often grim in the capital, sweet and gentle on the…
There cannot be many major rivers in the world that have a proper hiking trail attached to them all the way through, from the source to the spot where they join the sea. The Thames, Britain’s most famous river, is lined by such as a “source-to-sea” footpath – which, with a total length of well…
The town of Aveiro, roughly an hour away from Porto by train, is a favourite daytrip destination for visitors of Portugal’s second city. Aveiro has become a busy tourist town mainly on the strength of two attractions – firstly, a network of urban canals, which is also the reason why the town is frequently called…
Happy accidents are the gold standard of tourist experiences. You walk somewhere in the town centre of your destination, take a turn off the main street, then another turn and yet another, and before you know what is happening, you find yourself in a part of the city that looks dramatically different from the pictures…
Porto, Portugal’s second city, is a relatively recent arrival on the list of Favoured European Travel Destinations. Over the past 20 years, it has made the leap from amateur status to the Premier League of tourist destinations, powered by double-digit annual growth rates of visitor numbers for over a decade. It now counts over 2.5…
