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I first visited Europe when I was in my twenties. It was love at first sight. I fell immediately for the lush green landscape of Ireland, the quirky university culture of Vienna, Austria, and then the incredible history, landscapes, and food of Italy and France...
This past summer, I spent about three months exploring the Mexican Riviera. I cycled along coastal roads. I walked along seemingly endless white-sand beaches…
Not enough people are talking about Slovenia.We’ve all heard of Italy—with its perfectly poised pizzas and its hilltop towns—and France—with its fancy cuisine and Medieval castles.But somehow this small Alpine country tucked away along the Italian and Austrian borders isn’t on as many people’s radar.Which is a shame...
Castles...There’s just something magical about them—about their beauty, their strength, the ancient history we can all imagine within their walls. For me, they’re one of the big draws of Europe and one of the reasons I keep taking trains to small Swiss towns and cycling along back roads in the French countryside and hiking up Croatian hills to tumbledown ruins...
It’s no secret that Europe is a great place to live. Its many countries are known for excellent cuisine, gorgeous ocean views, jagged Alpine landscapes, great healthcare, and some of the best public transportation systems on the planet. But in an enormous and appealing continent, it can be tricky to know where to start your search for the most livable cities...
Deep blue water stretching into the distance. Rocky coastlines where mountains push up against the sea. Terracotta rooftops cascading down bright green hills. Islands silhouetted by fiery sunsets. And fortresses dotted across the landscape, towering above the valleys on a hilltop or settled against the sea with holes in their walls for cannon fire.
Stuart and Elizabeth have been living in France since 2008. The Loire Valley, with its lush landscapes and chateau-dotted hills, captured their hearts. Stuart and Elizabeth bought their home in the...
It’s the country that brought us Leonardo Da Vinci, mouthwatering cuisine from pizza to pasta, enchanting art and culture, world-class fashion capitals, wine, and the very best of it, and perhaps most importantly the concept of la dolce vita (literally translated as “the sweet life”). It’s where you’ll find history-steeped Rome with its well-kept ancient monuments and food culture…Venice with its air of mystery and its famous masquerade balls…and Florence with its art and culture and vineyard-covered surroundings.
In 2004 Karen McCann, now 63, and her husband Rich, 71, embarked on a year-long adventure in southern Spain. The newly retired couple had always loved the idea of living overseas, so they decided to try it for a year, making a home for themselves in sunny Seville.“We got here, and it was like, ‘Oh my God, we really like this,’” says Karen. “It’s so much like California—the weather, the Spanish speakers, the palm trees. We were comfortable with the whole atmosphere.
Cycling a beautiful, well-loved path along the Loire River in France’s famous castle-dotted Loire Valley, it was just as stunning as everyone said…full of quiet stretches of river, beautiful stone towns, arched bridges, river birds, happy cycling families, and a surplus of castles. On this particular day, as I was cycling through a small, forested area, it started pouring down rain—and so I stopped to wait out the rain in the next town I reached: the beautiful waterfront city of Beaugency.