PROS YOU decide…everything. Want to stay an extra three days somewhere because you really like the effing delicious pastry you had at that café and want to eat it at least five more times? Done. Want to stay in a hostel that requires hauling your bag up a mountain because it sounds kind of rugged and…
Tag: exploring
Day Hike: Marseille to Cassis Along the Calanques
It’s never been easy for me to say good-bye to summer. A creature of the sun who had the poor luck to grow up in the snowy northeastern United States, I spent my first twenty-three winters hiding inside and eating pastries, one step up from a hibernating bear. I get stir-crazy when the weather gets cold, because…
Day Hike: Lacs de la Pra
I’m so fresh off this hike that the soreness hasn’t fully hit me yet (“it will,” hiss my vindictive knees and hips in menacing whispers, “it will”), but I wanted to get this post up before the cold really settles into the mountains. The Lacs de la Pra are a smattering of tiny lakes in the Belledonne mountain…
Time Travel: May, 2014 – Slowing Down in Split
I was very unpopular in beautiful Croatia. Despite my best efforts to abide by all spoken and unspoken rules and to be apologetic for my ignorance as I navigated the country’s unpredictable off-season transportation and accommodation logistics, the people I came across were impatient and bitchy with me. I was almost tossed off of long-distance…
TAPIF Invasion: 10 Ways to Frappe the Ground Running
It’s that time of year: young anglophones lugging bulging suitcases suddenly appear in airports and train stations all over France, many of them employing a version of the local language that exists only in textbooks (and some of them, if we’re being honest, speaking what can only generously be called franglais). The TAPIF invasion has begun!…
Bicycling and Broiling in Burgundy
One of the best things about living an unsettled existence is that you end up with friends who live all over the world and are often similarly unsettled. This means… lots of mutual travel mooching! You crash with them, they crash with you, and everybody has a travel party. A friend I met through TAPIF has returned to…
One-Week Wander: Malta
Desperate to escape Lyon’s unrelenting damp and grey, I took advantage of the university break this past week and fled to Malta, a tiny Mediterranean country made up of three islands south of Sicily. January/February is the off-est of seasons for Malta. Visiting felt a little bit like walking in on somebody half-naked in a fitting room, because everything was…
Day Hike: Aix-les-Bains Gare SNCF to Belvédère du Mont Revard
Step 1: Get from the Aix-les-Bains train station to Mouxy. You’ll want to end up at the intersection of Route de l’Église and Route du Revard. Step 2: You will see a small shopping center (pharmacy, bakery, etc.) across the street from a church. Look for the set of yellow signs, and follow the one that…
Secret Passageways
Hundreds of covered alleyways called traboules burrow through Lyon’s older neighborhoods and harbor relics from across the centuries: among them, metalwork, fountains, and sculpture from the Roman Empire onward. Silk workers used them to transport silk in the 19th century, resistance fighters used them to evade Nazis during World War II, and tourists use them to annoy…
