Small Feet

To move westward in England is easy: simply hop onto the next train headed towards the Welsh Marches. As trains continue, farms flash by the windows, and small signs inform you when you pass through the various shires. I landed in Herefordshire, a country of farms and hedgerows that seemed to me mythical in its idyllic greenery. I was not disappointed. Several trains and buses later, I've alighted outside of the Kington Market Hall, after staring in increasing awe out of the windows as stone and timbered houses cluster in small villages around soaring church steeples. This is what I've come to see: tractors and trailers rolling through the streets, and hills rising upwards from the village scattered with sheep and traced with hedgerows, occasional white houses resting lazily in the creases of the pastures. The streets are hung with bunting, and there is the requisite war memorial in the town square, the obligatory town church complete with bustling ladies. Footpaths ...

Much of what I know of York I've gleaned from the song about the Grand Old Duke: that is to say, I know almost nothing. It seems a first stop in the North of England. I fall asleep on the train despite my best efforts, and wake to the rolling of the English countryside: more sheep; fewer hills; accents on the train that are distinctly not Scottish. Leaving the train on an overcast late-morning, I climb first up, onto the high city walls, carrying my bulging backpack. No one seems to notice. Trees – trees! – drape themselves over the edge of the walls, the worn stones creased and smoothed by centuries of feet. The walls narrow as they cross bars, the tall towers that connect the sections of the walls to each other. Crossing over the river, I leave the wall and plunge down into the city itself. The streets are delightfully narrow, the castle leading up to the Shambles market, which hums with people. Timbered buildings lean precariously outward over the cobbled streets, a...

To reach the Isle of Skye is to wind through the Highlands and to skim the waves of the Minch, to sit aboard a train chugging north at precisely its own pace and to be whipped by a stiff breeze on the ferry deck. The method of reaching this misty island hasn't changed much through the centuries - it's still necessary to watch the country roll by you, becoming wilder and more desolate and rising upwards. It's essential to lay aside a day of your precious time to become immersed in the twists of roads or the wiles of the public transport system. It's important to do this, perhaps because it makes the destination all the more precious. Arriving in Skye, you almost immediately roll by some reminder that this island has been here for much longer than you have – hills and mountains looming as they have since being scraped out of molten rock; the ruined castles and monuments of the clan chiefs in their glory days; mossy and crumbling foundations of countless house...

Canal sunset, Venice In line for the bar, Venice Museum, Venice Brunch in Edinburgh Ricotta, sesame and honey gelato in a deserted campiello (square) Maps exhibit, National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh Fresh spring blossoms all over Venice Public art drowning in Venice 

Venice is a city founded on shifting sand and soil, a maze of water and stone streets. It's unlike any place I've ever been. 70% of the Venetian economy is based on the massive influx of tourists that pour into the city all year long; the main centers of the lagoon are choked with people, but stray off the beaten path and the narrow streets are deserted. The current population of Venice is only a third of what it was at the height of the city-state's power in the seventeenth century. Now, it can be hard to make out the lagoon's identity from the masses of souvenir shops, 100 euro gondola rides, and selfie sticks. The canals lap at the bases of Venetian homes, on which the facades crumble to reveal discolored brick walls. The doors seem to be rotting, but in the upper windows flowers show signs of life.  It seemed appropriate to visit Venice in the week leading up to Easter; the countless brick churches in the city boast magnificent architecture as well as paintings a...