Bilbao, the largest city of the Spanish Basque country, bordered by the Bay of Biscay to the North and sitting on the banks of the delightful river Nervion, is a location with many faces. Until you have actually stepped foot into the city, as I did last week, you won’t even realize that you could […]
Rochefort France – A Maritime Town With a Lot of History and Charm
Rochefort France – More Than a Picture-Perfect Town It never fails to surprise me, that an apparently sleepy, provincial town like Rochefort France with only approx. 26.000 inhabitants can harbor such a great variety of history, monuments, art and even eccentricity. From the surrender of Napoleon in 1815 to launching ships and being the hometown […]
Be Enchanted by Germany’s Harz Mountains
Be enchanted by Germany’s Harz Mountains What first springs to mind when thinking about Germany’s fairytale landscapes of the Brothers Grimm may be the Black Forest. Think again and cast your eyes further North, to one of Germany’s undervalued but extremely fascinating regions: the Harz mountains. In fact, many of the stories collected by the […]
Things to Do in Algarve: 3 Day Itinerary from Faro to Lagos
Things to Do in Algarve, Portugal: 3 Day Itinerary from Faro to Lagos If you are heading for Portugal’s Algarve, you are in for a treat. From the westernmost point of Cabo de Sao Vicente to Cacela Velha in the east at the border with Spain, you find a cornucopia of sites. Beaches, mountains, thermal […]
Discover Western Algarve: Monchique
Discover Western Algarve: Monchique – Think Mountains not Beaches Many people who consider Portugal’s Algarve as their holiday destination, will think about the dramatic coastline, with breathtaking rock formations, alternating with fine, sandy beaches. But that is not all that Western Algarve has to offer. Discover Monchique in Western Algarve What’s not so well known […]
Experience Lausanne like a Local
Experience Lausanne like a Local I’m still nursing a few blisters, but that’s before I learned how to explore Lausanne like a local. What I didn’t consider was that Lausanne is built on three rather steep hills, connected by bridges, narrow streets, vertigo inducing staircases and, if you are lucky enough to find them, […]
Easter in Spain: Tips for Tourists
Make the most of Easter in Spain Tips for Easter in Spain Easter, or Semana Santa in Spanish, is the most important religious holiday of the country. More important than Christmas and it also lasts a lot longer. Although the word ‘semana’ (week) indicates a week, the entire festivities cover more like two weeks, during […]
Barcelona like a Local
Experience Barcelona like a local I have the good fortune to have a friend, born and bred in Barcelona, who kindly took me by the hand, sometimes literally, to let me experience Barcelona like a local. Of course, there are many places every visitor to Barcelona just has to see, like the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi […]
Get Ready for Fasnacht in Basel, Switzerland
This year I made my way to Fasnacht in Basel, Switzerland. I am on a mission. Over the next years, I want to visit and participate in as many carnivals all over the world as I possibly can. Last year I went to Venice, Italy. What better way of getting a real insight into local […]
Canal of Corinth, Agamemnon’s Tomb and Epidaurus
I hadn’t expected to visit the Canal of Corinth, Agamemnon’s tomb and Epidaurus on this trip, but Athens was a nightmare. I had arrived in the middle of violent demonstrations against the government’s austerity measures. Roads were closed off which made getting from A to B extremely difficult, even on foot, unless you wanted to risk life and […]