Easy hiking in the French Riviera Finally, we were able to get some hiking done after a day of enforced inactivity. The normally sun-spoilt French Riviera has been blessed by the country’s worst weather all week, and the azure which is usually the cote’s trademark has been fading to a dark hue of grey. The…
Got Two Hours in Cologne? Cologne is one of Germany’s main hiking hubs: whether you are going to the Rheinsteig, the Rothaarsteig, the Eifelsteig or any other trail in the Northwest of Germany, you are likely to pass through. But rather than just hopping off the airport bus into Cologne central station or using the…
Day Trip from Paris The Chateau de Fontainebleau Located approximately 30 miles south of Paris, the Chateau de Fontainebleau is probably the second most famous castle in France. The contrast to the undisputed champion, however, could not be starker: Versailles is so famous because it perfectly captures the personality of its “first owner”, the essence of…
Easy hiking in Germany Meet the Lake District of the Ruhr A few weeks ago, we travelled all the way to the Mecklenburger Seenplatte in Germany’s “Far East” to experience a near-Scandinavian blend of beauty and bleakness. This week, we discovered that we could have had all of that much closer to “home”. Well, nearly…
Hikes near Paris It was just after our picnic lunch on the Carrefour de Denecourt when Mrs. Easy Hiker started to sing the praises of hiking in the Ile de France, thanking the Hiking Gods for making all local trails so conveniently flat. She hadn’t quite finished her sentence when we went on a steep…
Hiking Trails near Paris Hiking the Marais of Misery You may have heard about Paris, Texas. Today, I will take you a little further east, into the swampy lowlands of the Essonne river, straight into the bayous of Paris, Louisiana. But first, we have to take the train into the Deep South of the Ile…
Where to Eat in Germany A German Currywurst is a treat One great joy of hiking in countries (or regions) other than your own is that it gives you the opportunity of sampling the delicacies of the various local cuisines. And of establishing that one man’s “greasy spoon snack” is another man’s national dish. National dishes,…
Bricks in Buildings Architects in most European countries have always considered bricks second rate material, i.e. inferior to stone. As a consequence, there are fairly few “prestige buildings” across Europe – churches, palaces of the high aristocracy – that are made of bricks. The exception to this rule is the extreme North of Germany (and…
What is a Forest? Hands up everybody who spontaneously said “Something with a lot of trees in it.” Strange, isn’t it, how much we take certain things for granted without ever thinking much about them. Forests are there – because they have always been there, haven’t they? This is an idea that probably still…
Hiking trails near Paris Confession time for a hiking blogger What I normally do after our hikes is this: I sit down, on the very same evening, to write down a few lines for later reference, so I will remember what happened when we eventually want to publish the post – which may be weeks,…
