The
tourist season for me started roughly a month to six weeks ago,
though I know strictly speaking that's early, extremely early for
some; for them it won't start until much, much later, when the
weather in most places in Europe is turning from mild and sunny to
boiling hot, unless of course you're into skiing; I'm not. Generally
speaking, March to May is just iffy, too iffy to guarantee an
inclement climate.
My
travelling tends to really get going with meteorological Spring;
sometimes before if the daffodils and blossom are already out, or
when I get an itchy foot. When the top of my right foot starts to
itch something chronic then I know my mind needs more, it needs to
explore further afield.
I
don't go far, in body, that is, but oh, in spirit, I'm right there,
wherever the book in my hand has taken me to. That land (and its
peoples) may not still exist, be even known by the same name or
follow the same customs. The capital, too, might have been moved;
moved to higher ground, or established where it was easier to rule
and dominate if an empire was in the process of being built.
The
world I want to tour is not the world we live in, so I know if I did
indeed go to these places as they are now I'd be dissatisfied. Yes, I
could go and see for myself Keats' resting place, and antiquities
that have been preserved, but would I find Goethe's Italy or Antal
Szerb's, Homer's Greece and Virgil's Rome? Or Hemingway's Paris, van
Gogh's Arles, Elizabeth von Arnim's RΓΌgen,
Pearl Buck's imperial China, and Rumer Godden's East Bengal or
Kashmir? Of course not! An essence of, certainly – some staged,
some conserved, some sense of in the foundations – but my mind
would be decades, even millenniums, behind; modernisms would just
interfere and wreck whatever enthusiasm or romanticism I feel about
that period. It would, I'm fairly sure, spoil it for me.
And
if it does give me some new feeling, then seeing may dilute, if not
remove, my enjoyment of the book or liking for the writer. Of course
it could enhance those erstwhile impressions too, but I've not yet
had that experience. Although you could say I've chosen not to,
knowing this might well be the outcome, and so not wishing to
diminish either the book or the writer in my estimation I've evaded
such travel altogether.
Kernels
of truth are hard to admit to, in voice or print, and even harder to
read with your own eyes, though I have no qualms in admitting that
I'm not a relaxed traveller. The conveyance itself has never bothered
me – train, plane, boat, coach, car etc. - but the procedures that
comes with these does: the terminal, the check-in, the security
measures, the boarding gate, the responsibility of luggage and
documentation, and other unavoidable travellers, just like yourself,
trying to get to and from somewhere, to the same or different
destination, or even to the buffet car. And that's just the start!
For
other holiday makers are inescapable, even if you manage to give the
ones you're travelling with the slip, because certain spots will
attract them from all over. And if there's a constant itinerary which
isn't constant at all but is frequently amended and where you're all
herded like heifers to places, then if you're anything like me it's
not very pleasurable. Though I can also feel this way if I visit a
museum. Here, in Britain.
I'm
just not great with crowds of people. I don't mind being among them,
preferably one of a modest size where's still space in which to move
quite freely and in which to breathe, but I dislike being pressed up
against or having to push to the front or fight to get to where
everyone else also wants to be.
As
for seeing the local attractions, or what's left of them, then
personally I just can't get close enough. I get this urge to jump
over or duck under roped areas. I don't, of course. If I went to
China, for instance, I'd want to walk amongst the terracotta warriors
and pet the horses. Like a child, I need to touch.
Books,
then, on their own, give me greater freedom as a tourist.
Spring butterflies is a term used for tourists by William Golding.
Picture credit: Memories of Travel, 1911, Gino Severini (source: WikiArt).
This post was penned in 2019.
