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
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
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
The thank-you notes have been written and mailed. The Christmas decorations have been stowed away for another eleven months. The house has not yet re-cluttered and feels a bit bare. The trees are mostly leafless, and the sky is dull and overcast. It’s damp and drizzly, but little snow. This might be the perfect time … Continue reading In the bleak mid-winter
With the lifting of many of the COVID-necessitated travel restrictions in 2022, I’ve been fortunate to resume some of the travel experiences that I’d put on hold. I had quite a concentration of them in the spring, some of which I wrote about earlier. March–over the spring equinox–was a grand time to visit Belgium. My … Continue reading Janus–looking back
“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.” (Jhumpa Lahiri) So, while this is a blog about books and travel, mostly about fiction in real places, it’s also about being able to travel within a narrative without having to move your feet. And that’s where I found myself recently–unable to … Continue reading Travel without moving your feet
Booked for Travel 