Travellers focus on the unknown
By Lisette Felix
“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveller only who is foreign.” [Robert Louis Stevenson in the book ‘The Silverado Squatters’].
Travelling often means discovery of unknown locales, but as a child, I noticed that the only place my parents ever went to was their birthplace in Dominica and, I suspect that for the longest time, all other Caribbean families did the same. We were encouraged to ‘go back home’ to discover what living there was really like.
For my generation who had no guilt, we went on holiday to experience a new place like everybody else. We were seeking, sun, sea and the occasional sexcapade; if I can say that.This was, of course, after you did your duty in visiting the home country.
My friends and I visited Brussels, France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands , far enough that you knew you were somewhere else, but close and cheap enough that you didn’t have to fly.
Brussels was amazing to me – travelling on the hydrofoil with my mum to Ostend when I was 18 and being helped off this funny sort of boat onto a waiting bus with the tour guide babbling incoherently in French and hurriedly translating her words into broken English. I was mesmerized as I passed through markets of cascading baskets upon baskets of fruit, shiny vegetables and beautiful twisted shapes of seeded bread and rolls. I had never seen anything like it.
Today, our children – the second generation born and raised in the UK, take planes like we used to take buses and trains. If they can get there, they will go – Australia, Peru, China, Cambodia, Japan, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines and beyond. There is no limit.
My daughter, Nadine and her husband Gee are fearless travellers. In October they decided to take a trip to Romania to see her friend Leanna and some designer shopping in Turkey. Well, her university days had brought her into contact with other students of varying nationalities and they both now have friends in many parts of the world. One in particular had moved to Romania in Eastern Europe for a job in the capital Bucharest. Naturally my daughter was invited to come for a visit.
For one week they visited famous and less well known parts of the country. It’s a fascinating place with ancient castles and a very rich history. Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, was set in and around Romania, and was loosely based on the exploits of Vlad the Impaler, who liked to impale his enemies, after torturing them, on the gates of his castle. Nadine visited Bran Castle, and was surprised at how nice it was.
“After driving for about three hours we came upon a small castle. I was pleasantly surprised, I had been very anxious on the drive to the castle, I had expected it to be a huge, dark foreboding place. Instead I found a quaint country house in a very picturesque location.”
The pair has many exciting plans for future destinations, including visiting Japan and Dubai. “We travel because we like meeting new people, seeing new things and experiencing different cultures,” they said.