City Breaks

One of my favorite places for walks is Perthshire. You can take the train from Edinburgh to Birnum/ Dunkeld and the lovely tourist office in Dunkeld will sell you some maps very cheaply. The countryside is beautiful, if you get away from the Hermitage walk you'll escape most of the tourists. Dunkeld is nice little village with a wee cathedral and has a great pub, the Taybank. I don't know if there is a bus to Aberfeldy, but I suspect that there is, so you could then do the Birk's of Aberfeldy walk. I've not explored this, but I suspect that there also some walks out Pitlochry. I did a short in town walk along the Tay, but I think there are longer ones. Pitlochry has the Festival Theatre, the Explorers' Garden, a couple of distilleries and a quick train ride from Blair Castle. Also, you could take the train to Aviemore. There are lots of walks in that area. It's beautiful countryside. Pam

I just thought of another place where I enjoyed a walk and that was Chamonix. You can go halfway up the Auille du Midi and then do the balcony walk. There are other walks in the area as well. There were tourists, but not as many as you might think. Pam

A few short train or RER rides come to mind outside of Paris. These are all places we used to go on Sundays when we lived in France. Fontainebleau forest, formerly one of the French kings' private hunting forests, is enormous and has numerous walking and riding trails. Several towns are in the forest with train stops. If Dina comes along, she can give you the details. Barbizon is a town in the Fontainebleau forest we visited just a couple years ago. It has a museum for the Barbizon School of Painters, a few elegant restaurants, though we ate in the local brasserie, and some hiking paths into the forest. We drove, so you need to check if it has a train stop. Another place is behind the chateau in St. Germain-en-Laye across the street from the end of the RER line. This is a huge area of formal Lenotre gardens and a park near the chateau, followed by a forest and fields behind the gardens. You could walk for hours and hours. There is a chic restaurant at the edge of the gardens in a converted out building and several less chic in the town across the street. We ate in some local dive (again) last time we went a few years ago. A lot of high school students were eating there too. To the north of Paris, there is a large forest outside Compiegne, and another behind the chateau and gardens in Chantilly. A trip to Giverny will get you out of the city and into Monet's gardens. The town to which you take the train, Vernon, has been rebuilt thanks to tourism. You can check to see if a train will take you to Auvers-sur-Oise where Vincent van Gogh is buried. This area is more suburban and agricultural rather than forested. It too has been rebuilt thanks to tourism. Just beyond Auvers is l'Isle-Adam, a town we'd take the train to for day hikes when I lived in France years ago. I'd check the websites for any of these towns to see what they say about walking paths and local restaurants.

The National Trails website may give you some ideas. http://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/ Also in north Essex/south Suffolk there is a walk through the landscape that inspired John Constable and a chance to see some of the buildings shown in his paintings. The nearest railway station is Manningtree, takes about an hour from Liverpool St station. http://www.dedhamvalestourvalley.org/uploads/Walk%20in%20Constable's%20Footsteps%20-%20web%20version.pdf

Terrific link Linda! Thanks

There are many great ideas here. Thank you all for taking the time to help us plan.

For Paris, Bois de Vincennes. It's just east and outside the ring road in the 12th arrondisement and you get there by RER, metro, or bus. You'll forget you're in the hustle and bustle of a large city! Way better than Luxembourg Garden for escaping the city. It's not wilderness, though...but there are crushed gravel walking paths through trees (the park is a former royal hunting ground), a serene lake you can rent boats on, lots of open space with benches for a picnic, etc. You could easily spend the day there! And No Vehicle Noise! In Rome, I'd suggest Janiculum Hill (spelled 100 dir ways - 'J', 'G', etc.). Beautiful! Great views overlooking Rome, too! When I went to Ostia Antica, there was absolutely no shade so I wouldn't suggest placing all of your eggs into that basket - brutally hot!!! Also, Aquaduct Park (esp. combined with Antica Appia) would be nice. AND photogenic! Pack a picnic...Get to and from by taxi or bus. Depending on your taste...I really enjoyed the area just north of Florence around San Miniato. Use Google Street View to see how gorgeous that area is - And Unpopulated by residents AND tourists! I really wanted to walk all over that area (conveniently served by bus), but just didn't have the time that trip :-(