Travel now not tomorrow

To sit at a café and watch visitors from all over the world pass before you is better than any beauty competition. Some people are truly awed, happy to see something that is nothing like their home and, sometimes, they are joyed to simply not be home. You can tell by their open-faced smile. They feel privileged to be there, and it doesn’t matter how many thousands of people have been here before them. For instance, I felt nothing but a thrill to see the Lion Gate at Mycenae Palace. Similarly to glimpse ancient paint high on a pillar in the Nile Valley and let’s not even discuss the toilets at Philippi. I was like a dog wagging its tail. Visitors like me, walk slowly, breath slowly, they even move our eyes slowly, all in fear of missing something, anything. Others are less happy. They prefer to take some good photos to show people back home or maybe bag a bargain. They want to see what is on offer to them. What they might extract from a place. They walk faster than the awed visitor,...