Contrariwise

[shewhomust]

I read - and enjoy - the Guardian's Travel supplement on Saturday's in a spirit of contradiction, of disbelief: is this really how people spend their holidays, flying halfway across the world, visiting places that I think of as unbelievably exotic, accessible only to the most intrepid explorers? Or, indeed, do they travel thousands of miles to spend a brief weekend at their destination? Do they organise a weekend break by selecting the hotel first (basing their choice on the quality of the toiletries) and then finding something to do in the neighbourhood? Not to mention the descriptions of glamping, glamorous camping, if ever two concepts did not belong together... And of course they do, many of them do, I am the one who is out of step.

This does not spoil the fun of reading about it, on the contrary. So when the first supplement of the year offered a list of 40 holiday destinations for 2015, I felt quite smug that not one of the 40 matched my plans. It took a degree of literal-mindedness to achieve this neat zero: one day I do hope to visit Yosemite, but not this year (California is just so 2014); I would like to visit Porto, and the Faroe Islands (though not in March, for the eclipse); it's not impossible that we might find ourselves in Rodez, I am plotting to be in the south-west of France this autumn...

Why does it become a point of pride to distance myself from the list of recommendations? I think there are two reasons. One is pure perversity: there's enough here that doesn't appeal that I refuse to want any of it. The other is vaguer, but it's something to do with not liking to be presented with a list to be worked through: not so much the 'bucket-list' as such - well, maybe it is. It's the idea that everything worth doing, everywhere worth seeing could be narrowed down to a list which someone else has compiled. I want the whole world, and you offer me a choice of 40 destinations -

Yes, it's completely unreasonable of me.

So it serves me right that the week after the article which promoted all this reflection about how out of step I am with the Travel supplement and all that is in it, it should carry a review of the Bridge Inn in Ratho, where we stayed before flying out of Edinburgh to the US; they liked it, and so did we.

Likewise, I may - I do - reject the whole idea of scoring items of a list, but I have just booked what my guidebook describes as "the ultimate tick for island collectors". Yes, we are going to St Kilda in May. That is, we will attempt to go to St Kilda: you book the boat for two consecutive days, in the hope the trip will be possible on one of them at least. But I shall be positive. The next task is to arrange a brief tour of the Western Isles around that fixed point: helenraven, I shall be picking your brains about Skye.

Comments

"California is just so 2014"

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Suite à notre conversation hier: http://madame.lefigaro.fr/art-de-vivre/marrakech-dans-pas-de-marisa-berenson-301112-307276 (je suis très Spa sounds so epic, don't you find? Or maybe I mean pompetic!)
Apart from that, I really do want to go all Marrakech after Londres, if you know what I mean? M. Cro Magnon only wants to go to watch masonic stones&bones and travel the country on the back of a dromedar like a Tuareg to learn to do the Mosaïque technique in the southern deserts so I reckon, he can do that while I rock the Casbah in a crinoline design: la petite-fille de Elsa Schiaparelli, nudge, nudge.

If you can find nothing on that list to match your Inner Self maybe you really are a bit too special but I too feel very special and also friends of mine even on LJ are getting so annoyed by such lists they collect them with a sense of awe, like others their fully blooded Arab horses. Not that I wouldn't. But without them, the lists I mean; I'd be lost in Meat Space especially at Carrefour, so full of alternatives my eyes brim over; "Bazaaar" as the French exclaim on meeting with disorderly arrays of concubines and worse but isn't this supermarket approach to our woruld or wer-eald a bit flat as the band Disneyland After Dark sang?
I believe you are right in your smugness, there are whole ways of talking in a certain way that sound like an alien language (Mollberg Speak being the Revolutionary Anti-Argent Codex) that are abominable as advertising trying to be emotional in assuming to cause such reactions with us, its dumb, presumable clients. Also, as has often been pointed out: the Aliens may merely prove be out on a friendly visit once they arrive but we must not jump to quick conclusions stemming from naîve presumptions as best shown in http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116996/

I hate people trying to finger my intestines or press my tear-channels, in cinémas, at the doctor's, on TV but most of all, at home and in writing. To counter-correct the side-effects of such assaults on my person, I just read Borges' Essai sur les anciennes littératures germaniques for the sheer joy of the experience what with Kriemhildchen having her males beheaded though the text is covered in the dust and cobwebs of my minor understanding of the French language so I feel I must challenge it more, maybe by reading Mauriac which immediately brings us back to Malagar the vineyard, just one of innumerous destinations to go here in the South-West of France, says your Guardian Guide even if they edited off that particular M(ollberg).S(peak). part from your present issue. I'll explain all, later!
Now for the brocante. Must have more books, the best manual-monger sells them at three a eurone and often adds one to keep bisnis going.

[helenraven.livejournal.com]

My brains look forward to it!

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

Well, actually, I have a couple of friends (or sets of friends) who do in fact go to wildly exotic places for vacations, staying for short times. I'm not sure how they pick their vacations, but sometimes it's based on cheap accommodations or cheap flights ("cheap" to across one or the other major ocean). These friends have a lot more money and energy than I do, though I'd love to be able to join them.

Maybe I really are am bit too special...

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

This is why I've taken so long to write this post: I know I'm being unreasonable, and yet... And I know I am fortunate to be quite well off, and to have tastes that mostly match my budget: there are places I would love to see, and probably never will, but the barriers are not purely cash (I'd love to see Samarkand, for example). My purse would not allow me to travel in the footsteps of Marisa Berenson, but really I am not sufficiently raffiné for Madame F., so it's just as well! I'd rather buy my books three for a euro at the brocante than trawl the souk for bibelots...

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Please remind me when you were there; I'd like to start by revisiting what you wrote about it...

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know it happens, I just have to keep reminding myself of it - you have a friend who finds it worth owning a flat in Paris, don't you? But then, this is a British newspaper I've been reading: we have longer holidays and more expensive flights than you do in the US...

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Me too, meaning I know people who do that kind of thing and just to add how much I would love to myself but I don't think it's the destinations or funds as money is now re-named, I see, at least when wanting any from anyone.
I believe, it's a matter of attitude and tone of voice, one giving and proving the other, that disturbs the mind of some, of whom I am one.
As Bowie sang on one of his records from the parted Berlin and the blame; was on the other side because I can't help finding, the smugness is, when reading that kind of list.
Also I like to feel special especially in good company and isn't that what true luxury is all about?

[helenraven.livejournal.com]

I was first there in May 2006 with Jane, and then the next time was November 2009, with my mum.

And then... January 2012 (this post and the next one), and January 2013 (this post and the next two).

I recommend getting to Skye by taking the route up from Glasgow and then the ferry from Mallaig. The Marine Hotel in Mallaig is decent, or at least it was in 2006. Obviously, I'm a big fan of the Bosville in Portree, though in May it will be pricey. If you're in Portree on Friday or Saturday, you *must* eat in the hotel's Chandlery restaurant; the meal I had there in 2006 was one of the best of my life.

There are various walks near Portree, including the Old Man of Storr, though I've always stuck with the tame ones within a mile of the town because it's been winter and the Old Man of Storr route sounded scary for a lone walker in damp conditions. The circular bus route around the north is wonderful, but you'll be doing at least part of that to get to Uig, anyway. My experience of Skye has been that of someone dependent on public transport (and on a winter schedule at that), and this makes ones options very limited indeed (which is actually part of the appeal). After a day there with a car, you'll be able to tell me what there is to do on Skye.

To leave, I'd recommend taking the bridge to Kyle of Lochalsh and then doing the route to Inverness. Of course, you could do the whole route the other way around, but that would be anti-clockwise and that's fundamentally wrong.

I really envy you the trip! Of course, it also feels fundamentally wrong to me that you'll be on Skye in May and not in January as God (and off-season hotel bargains) intended. But if you want to see St. Kilda I guess you have to resign yourself to visiting at a time of year that means you don't get to experience Skye with the full quantity of driving rain.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Thank you, that is enormously helpful, and I've just enjoyed re-reading all your posts.

I had remembered that you had been to Skye more than once, that there was a hotel you liked, and that it had rained a lot - not wrong, but not the whole story, either!