Overseas travel is back on Aussie agendas, ratcheting up carbon footprints (or indeed wingprints), particularly those of us who headed to Europe this year. Mea culpa! With family and friends that must be visited, one tries to occupy slightly higher moral ground than pure pleasure seekers.
For a nation of inveterate travellers, it’s curious that the flight shame (flygskam) notion hasn’t been much discussed Down Under. Perhaps national denial of another inconvenient truth, like our booming fossil fuel exports? The expression comes from Swedish and refers to the social and moral imperative to avoid flying due to its detrimental environmental impact. Northern Europeans have adopted it as a guiding philosophy since before covid lockdowns.
Some German and French friends have sworn off flying away for holidays, and taken to their cars and rail networks, to holiday closer to home. Flying to Australia is out of the question for them, and two different friends are considering passage on a container ship for Down Under.
The (guilty) pleasures of spending time on the Vieux Continent surrounded by cultures and Culture, history and local social scenes, are heightened in contrast to our bush home. The modus operandi these days in a foreign city is flâner, to go for a wander. The flâneur may have a loose objective but is easily distracted.
At the Mirroir d’Eau in central Bordeaux, a crew was filming this young ballerina. Billboards were a campaign about the beauty of cancer survivors. Stone remains date from 300 a.d., from the towers that protected Burdigala (precursor to Bordeaux) – the homeless man was proud to explain as he tidied up his corner behind. Camino walkers go through the city on the Rue des Argentiers. And even the fun fair is in good taste!
More travel vignettes to come, perhaps. And reflections about the impacts of tourism.
KOOKYNIE COURIER 
Baudelaire and O’Hara! You might also enjoy Edmund White – https://paperbackbooks.com.au/p/travel-the-flaneur-a-stroll-through-the-paradoxes-of-paris–27
Thanks Anna, I did enjoy White’s Paris wanderings book years ago, and join your recommendation.
hi pierre did you see that eurostar employees staged an un-announced lightning stike yesterday in pursuit of a €3000 xmas bonus instead of the €1000 bonus on offer. as all trains are booked out this sent the approx 30000 (yeah thirty thousand) passengers affected scrambling for alternatives such as flying, or driving/ hiring cars to catch ferries? when services resume there is no spare capacity to catch up. as the greens in france are in lockstep with melanchon & his so-called france insoumise, you know what their response will be to this carbon spike? nothing! not a word! when the SNCF stops operating as a private club for it’s employees & starts doing it’s job of making use of its infrastructure to transport passengers in an economical manner, we’ll leave the car at home. as it is, it costs us two at least twice the price to use the train as it does to use the clunky, 15-year old diesel.
quiet xmas planned; avoiding the brits is a priority. flying to porto for a week in january; again, would it be preferable for the approx 200 pax to all do that trip by car? or train? (at least 4 train changes & vastly more expensive) happy silly season
Great pictures Peter.Intresting post.
Jeez, I seem to be getting an unusual amount of travel advertising from French Tourism to visit France. Some of it claiming to be ecologically sound. Can’t remember signing up for it.
More likely the price of airfares will stop me. Either there is a shortage of seats, or an excess of passengers, given the prices.
A380 operators are getting their mothballed planes back in the air ASAP, Emirates is spending a gazillion $$$ refurbishing theirs!
>