My Travel Adventures

I woke up hungry and without much hope that I would find a breakfast place open at eight o’clock on a Sunday morning. My pessimism was not warranted. Urban northern Italy is not rural France, and although a city might be quite lifeless on the Lord’s Day, there are hustlers who work even then. After acquiring a croissant and an egg sandwich, which I had bought under the impression that the egg was a generous helping of cheese, I went to the Parco del Valentino one more time. Near its western end is a bizarre 19 th century imitation of a medieval town with towers, tall walls, and even a drawbridge. Unfortunately, much of it was undergoing works, so I continued to my next stop.

The weather forecast predicted rain for the weekend, and although I initially intended to stay at home and catch up on some work, my idle Google searches led me down a rabbit hole that would turn my plans upside down. Looking up the weather forecasts for neighbouring cities, I stumbled upon sunny Turin: With its direct bus connection to Geneva, cheap accommodation, and host of attractions, it was the perfect option. Thus, on Wednesday night, I booked my tickets and an Airbnb, and spent the rest of the week daydreaming about the getaway.

As Eli had an appointment, I spent the morning walking around the old town. 85% of the Warsaw was intentionally destroyed after the failed Warsaw Uprising of 1944 by Nazi Germany’s Verbrennungs und Vernichtungskommando (the Burning and Destruction Detachment), including some of its most important landmarks. The streets and walls teem with reminders of the Second World War: plaques to fallen heroes, boundary markers of the Warsaw Ghetto, and statues of great figures both real and imaginary. Standing at the northern side of Castle Square is a statue of Jan Zachwatowic, the architect who oversaw Warsaw’s rebuilding.

There were still two weeks to kill before I could move back into my accommodation at Oxford, and I spent them at the house of two friends in Hampton in Arden, a quaint village just outside Birmingham. Until writing this blog post, I often wondered but never bothered to find out what exactly an Arden is and why anyone would want to build a Hampton there. It turns out Arden was once a large forest in Warwickshire that gradually gave way to settlements like Birmingham, Coventry, and Stratford-upon-Avon. It is thought the word would have meant something like “highland” in Brythonic (meanwhile, the name “Hampton” derives from the very pedestrian words “home” and “town”).