Themes seem to emerge with each travel experience--sometimes intentionally, sometimes serendipitously. Our recent trip to Reykjavik developed a literary theme, unexpectedly. Our original plan had been a one-day stop in the capital and then a few days in the north and then a day or two back in Reykjavik before returning to the US. Plans … Continue reading A Room with a View
A number of digital workshops and classes I’ve attended suggest that people who start blogs tend to abandon them after a few entries. Bookedfortravel would seem to fit that description. However, I’ve decided to try to resuscitate it with a monthly offering about the books I’m reading, connections to other books and essays, and their … Continue reading Resuscitating a blog
Lady Bracknell demands something sensational to read on the train. I’m content to have something that holds my interest, that I can read when I’m not looking out the window on the train. We recently took Amtrak’s Ethan Allen Express from its starting point in Burlington, Vermont to New York City, a roughly 8-hour train … Continue reading On the train
Inspector Grant has been injured and is laid up in hospital, bored out of his mind. His friend, Marta, brings him a collection of prints from the National Gallery, including the portrait of Richard III, the last Plantagenet king of England. Grant asks each of his visitors what they know about Richard and what they … Continue reading Picture=Story
The second day of Icelandic summer found us strolling leisurely around the warm springs at Sky Lagoon, ducking under the waterfall, hanging on the infinity pool wall, dipping into the cold pool, and returning rapidly to the warmth of the lagoon waters. The first day of summer, based on the old Nordic calendar, occurs in … Continue reading City of Literature
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote ………………………………………………. Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages [When April with sweet showers. . .Then folks long to go on pilgrimage] Chaucer, General Prologue And so, with the start of April, this traveler longs to go on a journey, a pilgrimage of sorts, a literary pilgrimage to Reykjavik. … Continue reading Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
It’s back to Iceland for Susan and me for another literary festival. I was rather a late-comer to the pleasures of academic conferences and literary festivals. Amid high levels of self-induced anxiety and full teaching schedules, I presented a couple of papers at academic conferences, after which I found it’s much more enjoyable to simply … Continue reading Literary Festivals–a reason to travel
Among the places to travel in and through books is the past as imagined by novelists or interpreted by historians. The time and place when and where I most like to travel is Tudor and Elizabethan England. It’s mostly fiction that I read, but I have close to hand reference material that gives context to … Continue reading Words, Words, Words
Maybe the best part about retirement is that I’m the one in control of my time–mostly. One of the downsides, though, is deciding what to do with that time. While I’m working on those decisions, I continue to knit. I like having small-ish portable projects that I can work on during road trips. Sometimes … Continue reading Travel knitting with a purpose
I love maps. There is such a multitude of interesting and useful information to be found on a map. Maps show context–where one place is relative to another. Maps show how the cartographer views the world or the country or the neighborhood. I live in a town that is set out on a grid pattern: … Continue reading Reading maps
Booked for Travel 