Tour Musings

Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things - air, sleep, dreams, sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.

I went looking at travel quotations and this obscure one from Cesare Pavese (an Italian poet) may help me articulate musings arising from my recent holiday. Here then I wonder about the personal implications of travel and some of what Pavese wrote resonates.

Saying 'brutal' takes it too far in my case - I went from a developed nation to other developed nations in an age of convenience. But there were times in which I had to endure discomfort and boredom (particular on flights) and I was definitely aware of risks both likely and unlikely. My travels had been postponed by what had been a very risky pandemic. Now I was potentially exposed to more human respiration than in a very long time (and a lot of passive smoking too).

Other aspects of our changing times were also sobering. The world had arguably been getting safer than it has ever been but then some new or old-as-new conflicts burst forth and one cannot ever completely dismiss the possibility of stray missiles or hijackings. Ironically the very security processes one meets at airports are reminders of all those dangers.

But alongside fear exists trust. This attitude is vital in many aspects of life and becomes more pronounced in travelling overseas. I put my fate in the hands of so many strangers. Even the smallest of acts can shape ones day - consider getting the right advice on which platform to go to following a sudden change to train times. I was well served by others. My lack of familiarity with languages and locations and processes were all smoothed over by those who professionally or voluntarily helped me. To all of them I was grateful - even the grumpy ones.

I never exactly forgot home or friends but I did let them fade somewhat into my mental background. There was so much to actively focus on in the here-and-now. In some cases it was the positive of things I had wanted to see for a very long time. In others it was the negative of ensuring my few key possessions were in exactly the right pockets from moment to moment. I stepped carefully on cobblestoned paths to prevent losing balance. I intently observed passing landmarks to ensure I never got too lost. My senses seemed sharpened. I felt hale-and-hearty. Some of that has falterend since and I wonder if there was some kind of travel adrenaline enhancing me till the moment I got home and truly relaxed.

I walked more in Europe and in more ways than usual. It all felt fine then but on returning it seems I exacerbated some old damage and recovering from that takes longer now than it did in my youth. Age is getting to me and I wonder whether I left this holiday till too late in life. It was hectic in a way that was more tiring that it once would have been. But I had more confidence now than I would have in younger days (despite sometimes feeling like the new Monsieur Hulot in my stooping and bumbling ways).

It may be the last time I do anything so ambitious - eight cities in two weeks is a lot. The other side of the planet is also a very long way away. A friend has discerned in herself a limit of how many time-zones her energy levels will allow her to travel and possibly I will observe something similar in future. There is still plenty to experience closer to home.

Another friend recently designed his European holiday with a Byzantine theme guiding it. I never had one but rather a few interlocking themes. The notion of a unified Europe was one. Another much smaller one was the inspiring music of Queen. Aspects of my travels felt akin to pilgrimage. And some of that was surprising and spontaneous. I waded into the Mediterranean but what started with dipping my feet in its inviting waves impulsively turned into holding its water in my cupped hands and even experimentally tasting that ancient brine. I reckon it may have looked ritualistic to anyone observing. And that inner-sea is something worthy of awe as a natural phenomenon that then fostered such a dramatic florishing of diverse human civilizations.

They say travel is of value because it brings us closer to such diversity. I felt that in travel but I also feel it back home in multicultural Melbourne. I suspect that there are others who travel yet never discover anything more than confirmation of what they think they know. But I was open to both the big and the small things along the way. Some of the things I most enjoyed discovering were the ones I had never intended to find. One may go to a city to witness some grand momument seen in a dozen documentaries but then find something more charming in a sidestreet just around the corner. And then there is the next corner you never turn into but some other traveller has and that then becomes a tiny part of the life they are living.

I may well never return to those various locales but I am left with vivid recollections of them. I can imagine moving among any of them in a way that is odd for something that in reality involves a few days of flight to experience. Those imaginings now help enhance the comforts of the familiar.