Off the Beaten Path Travel Destinations in Europe
You feel Neuruppin first in the air off the water. Stand on the Bollwerk — the town’s lakeside promenade — and the Ruppiner See stretches longer than the map suggests, a flat blue band running toward reed beds and low pine. Boats knock against their moorings. A cyclist rolls past with a baguette under one … Read more
Luton gets sold as airport and football: terminal buses, Parkway taxis, the Kenilworth Road roar. Fine if that is all you need, a bed and a flight. I keep coming back for the short pedestrian suspension bridge over the Lea lake in Wardown Park, one of the shortest in the country, restored and still in … Read more
Most travelers pin Speyer to a Dom postcard, a Boeing on stilts at the Technik Museum, or a quick Maximilianstraße gelato between Mannheim and Heidelberg. Fine if the city is only red sandstone and a river bend. Less fine if you like Judenhof when the mikveh still cools your ankles before tour groups thicken the … Read more
Most people hit Arcachon for two moves: walk the front, then drive out to the Dune du Pilat until the sand gets in everything. Fair enough. The dune sells itself. The part of town I keep circling sits uphill under pines, where the air cools and the villas still look built for people who meant … Read more
Cortina d’Ampezzo has a reputation that gets there before you do. Ski fashion, magazine spreads, the hard white of the Tofane in winter light. Fair enough. That stuff is real. I just don’t spend most of my time chasing it. What I keep coming back for sits a little lower: the old railway bed that … Read more
Cividale del Friuli sits where the Natisone cuts a green trench through limestone. Most people stop on the stone arch first and look down. The water is colder and clearer than it has any right to be this close to the plain. Legend says the Devil built the bridge in a night and left a … Read more