Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Are you a once-in-a-lifetime traveller or a creature of habit?
Are you a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ traveller? That is, every country you visit you consider it to be a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ experience and treat it as such? Do you go to a place thinking you may never get back there again so everything you do is a special adventure? Do you go with the idea that you won’t even dream of returning because there are simply too many other amazing places to explore in the world? Maybe it's more of a financial imperative? Or, do you travel thinking you are definitely going to return some day, so you take it easy, kick back, and don’t put too much pressure on the trip? And in doing so, you find you appreciate the place and the little experiences and everyday moments more? Indeed, if this is a place you end up liking a lot, you won’t have a problem returning the next year, and the next, and perhaps the one after that… so that by the time you’re 80 you could be leaning over to the diners at the next table one night to boast “my husband/wife and I have been coming here every summer for the last 30 years”, as a very contented woman told us one evening in Capri as her beloved husband sliced a ripe juicy peach for her after their meal – a habit that seemed so matter-of-fact, he’d probably been doing it for 30 years… So, which traveller are you? Do have one travel preference over another? Or do you mix it up with destinations you treat as once-in-a-lifetime experiences and favorite holiday spots you return to every year? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Life of a Travel Writer: when the travel writer dreams about taking a holiday
It's been a tough week. We're still completing the writing on one book project while we're researching others, as small assignments continue to come in, and other offers too good to refuse present themselves. It's hard to say no even though we're both completely exhausted. Terry appears to be getting the flu, I had an infected blister that saw one foot so swollen and inflamed I couldn't walk on it for a day, and I can't ever remember having been this tired before. We slept in until 9am today and yet I felt guilty even though we had an early start yesterday, worked all day, and were pounding the pavement until 10pm checking out bars last night for the book. We had a dinner reservation at 10.30pm but then even after our meal Terry continued to take photos for the book of the lively Navigli bar scene on the way home. We finally crashed around 2am and yet today I felt guilty for those seven hours of sleep. And it's been a hard week. We've been on the go all day every day from early until late with photo shoots and interviews at museums, theatres, shops and restaurants. In between Terry is walking the streets in the sticky 35+ Celsius heat (the humidity in Milano has been high this week so it seems even hotter than it is) and I'm researching, writing, and planning the next leg of the journey, to the Italian lakes and other parts of Northern Italy, and for two more research trips after that. And while our work is going to be taking us to some incredibly beautiful places, all I can think of is a holiday somewhere. Anywhere but there. Somewhere where there is nothing to do except lie on a beach and read books for a few weeks. And you thought travel writing was one great big holiday...
Another Room With a View
They don't have to be ocean views to be alluring. The view between those floor-to-ceiling (French?) doors, whether swung wide open or ever-so-slightly ajar (the latter is even more enticing, don't you think?) could be of a bucolic country scene, majestic snow-covered mountains, or an arid red-dirt desert for that matter. What's most important is the fact that your room has doors, a window, or, better yet, a balcony, patio or veranda. It's the ability to step out that's important. To step out into the world (another world - 'other' world - a world that's not yours) and take in surroundings that would otherwise not surround you. Not least on an ordinary day, when you open your window - to your front lawn, your neighbor's lawn, your own back yard, your neighbour's back yard, or simply to nothing at all. But they surround you on this day, your holiday. And they - those spectacular vistas - make you feel special. And you say to yourself, you, I, we, we deserve this. We deserve a holiday. We deserve to travel. And we deserve a room with a view. Don't we? Don't we all?
Summer holidays: Beijing
Beijing. My picture of the Pekingese pup perched on a shelf (as if for sale) outside a hole in the wall store in a backstreet of a Beijing hutong reminds me of our last summer there. A monsoon of memories, provoked by potent images, comes to mind - don't you love the way our memories sort, collate and retrieve images at will? Albeit somewhat imperfectly, but I'm thankful all the same. The first image is that of two little girls and their mother whom we met in the Forbidden City. I'd been looking forward to seeing the City but the weather was awful (sweltering, steamy, smoggy) and the air quality dreadful (it was difficult to breathe) so my memories are as hazy as the City was on that day. My strongest memory, however, is of this charming affable (even playful) mother and her adorable children who chatted to us for a short time. The little girls wore these kitsch souvenir headdresses that I became smitten with (yes, I ended up buying one) and after speaking to them for just a little while, I didn't want to leave. They were on their summer holidays and they were generous, even lazy, with their time, casual and carefree, and in no hurry to go anywhere. That's something about summer that I love. That easygoing temperament that overcomes us with the warm weather come July and August. Where does our patience go the rest of the year? Regardless, thank god it returns. And there was something about them that I envied. They were having fun. It was their summer holiday after all. I think I've forgotten what it's like to have a holiday... and a summer one at that.