I grow to love Intelligent Life, the Economist magazine published every two months. It is rather like the review section of a Sunday newspaper, but with the sharp attitude and writing style from the parent publication. Some features, like the wine review, just leave me cold, since they describe a world outside of my comprehension (how can a wine bottle of 400 dollars be good value?). It is also hard to make credible listing which are global and relevant: if six exhibitions are listed, then the chance that I might happen be in one of the cities might be 10%.
One regular feature is called Seven Wonders, in which some polyglot is asked to describe a special view, city, hotel, building, beach, journey and work of art. Often, I have not even heard of most of the nominations, and that can grate, inspiring not awe but a sort of jealousy. But each time I have read the feature I have been tempted to try it for my myself. So, this week I did. I have no expectation that it will inspire awe, and hope it will not inspire jealousy either. My hope is to inspire you to try the exercise for yourself, as I found it fun and pleasantly nostalgic.
For a view, there are many candidates in Scandinavia, and some cityscape views as well, for example the Staten Island ferry view in New York, but my choice is the Swiss alps from a plane. Business travel has many negatives, and frequent flying is certainly one of them, but I still love looking out of the window on a clear day, reflecting on the miracle of flight. I also love maps and fancy myself as a good navigator, so the puzzle of identifying locations beneath me is endlessly fascinating. Flying over any city I know is thus a joy, but, for its sheer splendour, mountain ranges are special. It is almost worth the cost and hassle of a day trip from Amsterdam to Milan and back for the beauty that are the alpine views from the window. One of the blessings of our generations.
I love cities, and love being what I now learn is called a flaneur, a sort of random wanderer in a city. Walking and public transport are my favourite ways to be a flaneur. Choosing any city over any other is difficult. London, Paris, New York, Barcelona, Lisboa, where to start? I suppose somewhere compact, where it is easy to walk, somewhere with a distinctive history and present, and where buildings and especially people have stylish diversity. So I go for Sevilla. It is stiflingly hot in summer, but otherwise the city is a jewel, its people proud, demonstrative, stylish and often out of doors. Boston or Cambridge might qualify as well.
I found hotel the hardest category, I think mainly because hotels for me mainly evoke the most sterile part of sterile business trips, judged only by the absence of the negative. As long as the room temperature is OK, the bed soft and without bugs, the hot water hot, the breakfast edible and the check-out efficient, I’m happy to move on. True, I’ve been to some beautiful locations (Holmenkollen in Oslo and the Danube front hotels of Budapest), historical places (the castle hotels near Stockholm or the Hunting Tower near Perth in Scotland), and quaint establishments, and I’ve had wonderful experiences in hotels as well, but something about the category does not work for me. So my choice is a sort of anti-choice. Formule One is a great business model, and revolutionised its category, so my choice is any Formule One. You can plan your journey, you know exactly what you will get, and your wallet will hardly be troubled. I’m old enough now to value a private toilet, but if Formule One hadn’t started the trend, imitators with private toilets would not have arrived.
For buildings, I am no expert in architecture, but I do love wandering into Churches. For me the delight of Rome is just to randomly walk, stopping at every Church I pass. But how to choose between them all, single one out? Then I also love many modern buildings, those that combine functionalism and simplicity with grace and uniqueness. I am not one to denigrate the town hall in The Hague. My choice is a museum, the Vasa in Stockholm. The building is the boat, reconstructed from a salvage operation fifty years ago, the same boat the sank half an hour into its maiden voyage four hundred years earlier. The boat itself is magnificent, and its museum combines that splendour with history, science and intrigue.
A beach for me is for walking. So it needs solitude, dramatic colours and dramatic sea, the chance to paddle and sand that is flat and hard enough to walk on, an alternative cliff top route for the return journey, and a vista facing either way. It also helps if the climate is seasonal but mainly sunny. So I choose Falesia beach in the Algarve, between val de Lobo and Albufeira. Just like Sevilla, avoid July and August, this time because of people as well as temperature. Otherwise the orange cliffs and exciting sea offer all the aids to reflection that one could ever want. Portstewart in Northern Ireland has all the same positive characteristics – but unfortunately it is usually raining.
Journey is a lovely category. One day I would love to walk to Santiago de Compostelo, but I haven’t had that pleasure yet. The South Downs way from Eastbourne is a wonderful journey and surprisingly accessible, dotted with good pubs. I could also choose something abstract like Holy Week. But I choose a rail journey, as I love travelling by rail almost as much as walking. The route from Oslo to Bergen is stately. At the top of the mountains it is possible to detour onto a funicular and boat trip on a peaceful fjord. But the best feature of the journey is its ability to offer three seasons in a single day, for example in September. Near Oslo you find Autumn colours and flavours, but it the mountains it is already bleak winter. Then in the maritime air towards Bergen you can capture the last of summer. Spring is a bit harder generally in Scandinavia, as it is always late and fleeting. Bergen is a wonderful destination if you are lucky enough to choose one of the sixty or so days in the year when it does not rain. A tourist tip for Norway is to go inland. The Hurtigruten up the coast is famous and has its charms, but the views cannot compare.
Last comes a work of art, and my appreciation is greatest for music. I could go for a Victoria or Monteverdi anthem, last year I sang a piece from the same era by Vivanco which was unforgettable in its drama, but in the end I choose Bach. This prolific composer could not write bad music, nor could he write music that stands still. Some Bach can be so somnolent as to be monotonous, but not the Magnificat. Twelve short movements, each with its own distinctive character, perfectly formed. Amazingly, Bach wrote much of his music for his local Church choir, and was constantly harangued to keep his music short. His remit for the Magnificat was not to go over thirty minutes, and this may explain why the very last movement rather runs out of steam. But in show business the maxim is always to leave the audience wanting more, and that certainly applies here.
So, that was fun, and I commend the exercise. One overall reflection is that most of my memory concerns less the object and more the human experience I associate with it. Don’t you find that when you look at your old photos the only ones you linger over are the ones of people? Well, I found the same with this. I suppose that is good, or we might all choose the same places.
The other reflection is how blessed I am compared with my parents, to live in an age where the world has become so much smaller and more accessible. Yet still almost all my choices are from the developed world and even from Europe. I guess my 22-year-old daughter would already be able to offer a more eclectic selection, and just think of the range of experience she might have when she reaches fifty one, or when her own kids reach fifty one.
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