Adventures beyond the front door
It had been a long day exploring the island. We’d travelled east, to the very edge of São Miguel where the rocks look out across the ocean towards a Europe beyond the horizon. These were some of the first communities that settled in the Azores from Portugal, although in this part of the world, settled… Continue reading Time for tea – Gorreana, Azores
At the guesthouse, our landlady ushered us into a wooden room with a view out across the valley to the mountains on the other side. She lowered herself into a chair and carefully began entering our details into a laptop computer. A moment or two later and the printer started into life. ‘Your guest cards,’… Continue reading Cable cars, climate change and loving high places – Valluga, Lechtal Alps
There was a whisper that, lying somewhere in the woods, or deep in one of the gorges and caves created in this rift in the landscape somewhere in the south of Sweden, was a sleeping dragon. It was, they said, very old. As old as the Söderåsen itself. This ridge was created some 150 years… Continue reading Sleeping dragon – Söderåsen National Park
In the car park at Heimbach, as the river waters ran fast beneath the castle walls, we peered through the windscreen as the rain beat down on the car and puddles formed where the asphalt had been misshapen by time and the long reach of thick tree roots beneath the surface. We had known, before… Continue reading Walking in the rain – Heimbach, Eifel
When friends live in different countries it is not always easy to find time to spend together, so when we can capture the moment, we try to make the best of it. This time we met in Lucerne (Luzern) for a weekend by the lake. But while the town was welcoming and friendly, it was… Continue reading Queen of the Mountains – Rigi, Switzerland
As so often is the case when you approach somewhere new, we settled on a simple plan. From Lausanne station we would take the train that travelled east above the shore of Lake Geneva as far as our city pass would allow, and then we would walk home. It would be a walk that took… Continue reading On the terraces – Lavaux, Lake Geneva
Even paths we have walked many times can be made anew. The walk was a familiar one, out from our little yellow house on the edge of a Brandenburg village, following a rutted, sandy trail where the houses meet the fields to the water tower. From there, we would walk the track along the forest,… Continue reading Miles to go before we sleep – Fläming in the snow
From the top of the Wilseder Berg, the highest point of the Lüneburg Heath (Lüneburger Heide), we looked out across the rolling landscape that has long been a draw to visitors of northern Germany that has long been an attraction for visitors – and especially nature lovers. Unfortunately it was too early in the summer… Continue reading Rolling country – the Lüneburg Heath by bike
The village of Ehrwald sits at the corner of a valley in Austria, just across the border from Germany. The valley is about a thousand metres above sea level, a damp moss of drained moorland divided into neat fields for growing the hay that will keep the cattle fed over the long, snowy winter. At… Continue reading Mountain of the Mind – Daniel, Tirol
The new year begins as the leaves begin to turn, and those last warm summer evenings switch to an autumn chill, the smell of wood stoves in the village or small bonfires in the allotments of the city. We call it a new year because autumn is a time of beginnings as well as the… Continue reading Walking in Autumn – Berlin & Brandenburg
The Winding Trail 