Three for Friday
Travel and its transformations, holidays and sage advice for the tourist
To start your weekend off in holiday mode here’s a clever, and very human, story by Carol Shields, in which the turning point occurs in my favourite museum, the Cluny in Paris.
In the essay below Francis Bacon (1561-1626) offers sound advice to the traveller which continues to hold true today (with the exceptions that overseas travel is not the preserve of men alone and we carry our own bags!). The best counsel, like the best wine, comes at the end, when he admonishes the returned traveller against being too boastful at home:
And let his travel appear rather in his discourse than in his apparel or gesture; and in his discourse, let him be rather advised in his answers than forwards to tell stories; and let it appear that he doth not change his country manners for those of foreign parts, but only prick in some flowers of that he hath learned abroad into the customs of his own country.
Finally, a poem by Li Po celebrating a traveller’s respite.
What books have you brought/will you bring to entertain you on holidays this year?
Good idea! Meanwhile you can do some armchair travelling through books! And plan your next trip, too.
It would be lovely to be travelling again but I think I'll be waiting until things cool down a bit. Food for thought though...