“Maybe we just heard someone talking in a room,” I suggest to Keith. We sit on the edge of the wall fountain, soaked to our thighs. I have Sun-warmed figs for lunch. “It couldn’t have been ghosts, could it?” I add. The grapevine canopy clings to the fountain’s terracotta overhang, and snakes down the blue…
Travel Writing
Out of Traffic and into Tranquillity by Emma Freelove
If you have OCD, don’t glance up at the electricity pylons. The thick mass of tangled wires is a good analogy for the animated streets of Ho Chi Minh. Vietnam’s largest city throbs with life from the 7 million souls who live there and the marginally smaller number of mopeds on the roads. Crossing the…
Palairos, Greece by Emily Thompson
A sailing boat is the perfect platform for people-watching. A crowd of Greeks sit outside a bar drinking ouzo, the harbourmaster strides up and down the dock, and beautifully bronzed foreigners lounge on a yacht further along the pontoon. Across the Ionian Sea, islands appear through the haze created by the brilliant sun. But closer…
A Ginormous Texan Experience by Phoebe Barker
When Phoebe first arrived in Texas it felt like Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. She had unknowingly drunk the magical potion and shrunk to the size of a white rabbit. Everything was huge. Unlike my peers who were spending their teens discovering the wonders of alcohol, snogging and spreading rumours, I spent my time hidden in a…
White Blank Page by Carlota Maura
I closed my eyes and absorbed the darkness, letting everything around me come alive. I had roamed the streets for hours, taking it all in: the smell of melted mozzarella on the world’s finest pizzas; the ghostly decadence of the city’s oldest buildings; a loud melody, Chopin perhaps, can be heard through an open window;…