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Three years ago we published our ‘Manifesto for Slow Travel’ in hidden europe. It has since been picked up more widely, online as well as in other print media. hidden europe magazine is very much about slow travel, about deceleration rather than speed. The key to slow travel is a state of mind — and that can be developed anywhere, even at home. We make here the full text of our manifesto available online.
Over the last few hundred years there has been a subtle shift in how we think about travel. Dante's journey through the three realms of the dead can be read as an intriguing piece of travel writing. Homer's Odyssey is an equally fabulous travel narrative. Yet travel has somehow slipped out of fashion. True, we fly hither and thither, but travel is rarely valued for its own sake. Instead it is recast as a minor inconvenience that somehow intervenes between our point of departure and our intended destination. The pleasure of the journey is eclipsed by anticipation of arrival. To get there fast is better than to travel slow.
Yet where would travel be without all those slow journeys of…
Latest Note:
Opening of new Berlin airport delayed
Berlin’s much vaunted new airport, already much delayed, was due eventually to open on 3 June. But the announcement this week that the airport (dubbed BER in IATA-speak) will not now open until later in 2012 threatens to pay havoc with summer travel plans. The whole airport saga has dragged on for years with contractors squabbling and an evident lack of clear leadership. But after delays last year, the 3 June opening date seemed very firm and few Berliners had any inkling that there would now be further problems.
Letter from Europe:
Flying can still be fun
Flying has generally ceased to be fun. The only certainty about much modern air travel is that it will be boring. Gone are the days when Dakotas battled against headwinds and made unscheduled landings at rough airstrips in offbeat parts of Europe. Airports from Omsk to Omaha are nowadays all very much the same and all equally uninspiring. All that said, it is always interesting to browse the summer flight schedules and find that there are a few parts of Europe where scheduled air services still make a very fine contribution to life in remote communities. And there are many examples where a plane bridges a gap between places that are otherwise unlinked by surface transport.
Current Issue:
hidden europe 36
In this issue, we trace the history of London’s St Pancras area, witness how the villagers of San Vicente de la Sonsierra in Spain’s Rioja region mark Holy Week, probe Charles Dickens’ statement that the French port city of Boulogne was “every bit as good as Naples” and discover a lesser-known Latvia, where concealment was long a high political art. We invite you to join us on an itinerary that takes us from the island of Mingulay in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides via an intriguing Swiss museum to Jutland’s sandy shores. We also trace the remnants of Latvia’s Livonian culture, find out what happened to former Anglian churches on the European mainland and attempt to buy train tickets for cross-border local train journeys.
