Where Would You Go?
So. Say your birthday is coming up, like soon, and you have a little stash of cash left from a trip this spring that didn’t happen. That destination is topping 100 degrees this week and it’s not looking as inviting as it was in January. You like to celebrate your birthday week – which is really two weeks this year because the birthday is on a Sunday. The week before and the week after. You could go anywhere that wasn’t expensive (think flying on Tuesday and staying in hostels). You like art, archaeology, photography, foreign (to you) language, the beach, (but it doesn’t have to be a beach trip because you’re a little overweight and not comfy in a suit) and good food. Where would you go?
Tags: birthdays, destinations, Travel
April 18th, 2009 at 5:28 am
“Where would you go?”
Where would I go? It varies by the day, of course, but some of the dreams remain consistent….
Tuscany, perhaps: I still haven’t been to Florence. To be in Firenze is a dream that I have dreamed since first seeing the film dramatisation of E.M.Forster’s “Room with a View”. Some might think that the tears were something to do with La Bonham Carter, but I know otherwise, and I learned (later, much later) that the very sight of red-tiled Tuscan roofs can bring them on again. Florence is famously crowded, and crowds can overwhelm the empath in me, but I know that a step or two away from the main streets of any must-see tourist haunt will lose at least 80% of the crowds, and I know, too, that an early (or late) roam with the camera will bring me to the silent spots (and the shot I wanted).
Sienna, too. And Seville. Cortona, *sigh*. And Prague. Prague waits for me, I’m told. Barcelona. Copenhagen (again, any time). Helsinki, yup. I’ve come to love any city that resonates with the clatter and squeal of trams. Milan surprised me; it was the trams that persuaded me, and the Duomo that convinced me – knocking the breath from me in the same way that the Pantheon reduced me to silent tears. St Petersburg has been calling me for some time now….
I’ve never really understood why some cities feel like home, even before you get there. So many places sing the siren song for me.
Oh. And Oh. San Francisco. City of canyon streets and whale song nights. I’d go back there in a heartbeat.
Where would I go? I can’t choose, I really can’t. Just point me and push. Gently.
April 18th, 2009 at 9:05 am
I think maybe on some level I was waiting for travel restrictions to Cuba to be completely lifted so I could combine a Mexico/Cuba trip …