Armchair Travel

I am so enjoying Journeys by Jan Morris. She really captures the atmosphere of a city: its people, history, foibles and fables. I know she has written many books about her travels and I think my next choice will be Destinations: essays from the Rolling Stone published in 1980. She even has a biography of Abraham Lincoln. That one surprised me.

Reading her thoughts and comments on cities I have visited and ones I might not even think to visit gives me a feeling of just how large and how varied the world is. It is too bad that traveling has become such a chore. Really, just trying to get around my hometown has gotten difficult. Traffic delays, road closures, and we have one of three bridges over our lovely river closed. That has definitely put a damper on things.

I think for the time being, at least until I begin my Grand Southern Tour,  I will stick to traveling via my armchair.

Journeys

I slept in...and in...and in...this morning. Much later than I planned. When I finally looked out the window while the coffee was brewing I saw the sunshine doing its best to warm up a very cold day.

I felt this would be a good Sunday to do some armchair traveling, so I picked up off the library chair Jan Morris's Journeys which has been sitting there for weeks waiting for me to get on board.

Ms. Morris gives the reader a wonderful sense of a place. Not tourist site after ubiquitous tourist site, but more of a collage-painting of sights, sounds, conversations, weather, history, architecture, atmosphere, and anomalies of the cities and countries she is visiting.

Already today I have been to Sydney, Australia; Wells, England; Las Vegas, Nevada; Bombay and Calcutta, India; and, Houston, Texas. Quite a whirlwind trip.

These essays were written based on visits in the early 1980s. But what does it matter? The writing is entertaining and Ms. Morris is quite a companionable and well-spoken guide. From her balcony at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay to the drawing room of the Organist at Wells Cathedral, her droll sense of humor and spot-on (and sometimes caustic) observations never fail to bring a laugh or a nod of agreement. She is not one to avoid the controversial comment.

There are 13 different journeys to be enjoyed - all from the comfort and coziness of my reading chair.