Hiking
Rest and be thankful on hiking routes
There comes a point on longish hikes when your body, or common sense, tells you it’s time to hit the pause button, to park your bum for a short while to rest legs and back. […]
hiking routes
Hiking
Five of my favourite hiking routes
The other day we chewed over our favourite hiking routes; not an easy task as we could compile an encyclopedia of great walking routes we’ve completed over the last decade. After much debating and discarding I settled on this five. […]
Europe
Spellbound in the Logar Valley in Slovenia
We change into light walking clothes and head deep into a glacial valley renowned for its beauty in a country where scenic splendour comes as standard. It is completely enclosed by mountains – on two sides are conifer-clad slopes, behind us are high meadows, ahead tower the saw-toothed peaks of the Kamnik-Savinja Alps. […]
Europe
Scenes of walking in Peneda-Gerês National Park
Portugal’s only National Park meanders spreads south from the Castro Laboreiro to the Mourelo Plateau. It is a wonderfully wild expanse of glacial valleys, boulder-strewn plateaus, lakes and rivers, high mountains (in Portuguese terms), cork and oak forests, and tiny settlements… […]
Hiking
Not all walkers are slow travellers
“I don’t want to read flowery descriptions,” the man smiled, but not really in a friendly way. More in a Wormtongue manner. “I just want walking directions that will tell me how to get from […]
Hiking
The art of map reading, an essential skill for walkers
It’s funny that something I learnt at an early age – how to direct artillery fire onto an enemy position with pinpoint accuracy – could become an essential part of my working life decades later. […]
Food and drink
The Problem With Off the Beaten Track Places
There’s a thing about some people who like to go off the beaten track. Things they ‘discover’ themselves can often have more value than those in a guidebook. […]
Europe
Walking in Provence is Easy on the Eyes and Feet
Having negotiated plunging ravines in Gran Canaria and La Gomera and tackled the Pyrenees over the course of the year, walking in Provence was like enjoying a light dessert… […]