I’m an armchair traveler, as opposed to Anne Tyler’s Accidental Tourist. Don’t groan, but I’ve seen a few vacation slide shows narrated by relatives or friends, and enjoyed them. Nowadays people might share pictures on Facebook but it’s not the same thing!
Speaking of Italian, I have an unusual spiral-bound book called Rome, Past and Present. It was printed in 1962 in Italy for the visitor to Rome’s monuments who is curious about what they looked like almost 2000 years ago. How fascinating to stand in front of the ruins of The House of the Vestal Virgins, for example, and find it in this little guidebook on page 32.
And then when you flip a plastic illustrated overlay on top of this present-day photo, you can see what the building looked like when in use.
Six chosen Vestal Virgins lived here, tending a perpetual “fire of the hearth” and officiating at Vestalia, an annual public festival. Unlike other women, the Vestals were emancipated from their fathers’ rule and could manage their own property. They entered the House at age 6 to 10, and served there living as virgins for 30 years. When they left service they could marry, though few did.
Another travel book, that I read some years ago, is South from Granada; Seven Years in an Andalusian Village by Gerald Brenan. I think I was attracted by the chapter, “Virginia Woolf’s Visit”. But Brenan is mainly interested in learning about this region in the south of Spain and about the people of Yegen, the primitive mountain village that he lived in for 7 years — with his 2000 books!
Here’s an example of his observations.
The children’s songs … were delightful. The best were those they sang in games of the type of ‘Oranges and Lemons’. These consisted of fragments of sixteenth century ballads joined together without too much regard for sense and ending in passages of sheer and exuberantly childish nonsense.
I have in mind a third travel book but I don’t remember the title. I read it about 20 years ago for a book club in Brevard that lasted 9 years. Our custom was to take turns choosing the book for the next month, so we read a variety.
C___ usually chose an adventure story. As I recall, her book that month was about an American woman who journeyed alone by train through China in the first half of the 20th century or even a little earlier. China! By train! A woman alone! I still admire her imagination.
I’ve looked for this book online once or twice without success. Of course, I could always call C___ and ask her for the title. But then it wouldn’t be an adventure!