Travelling Fast, Living Slowly: an English Reflection on European Lifestyle
How travel can do more than just broaden the mind, but multiply the soul.
This story originally appeared on the Gents Cafe Newsletter. You can subscribe here.
Aside from the essential morning espressos, rustic colourful balconies on which the elderly tend to plants, the buzz of an intrigued centre square, beautiful churches to dip in and out of, twenty-four-hour linen wardrobes, and immaculate meat and seafood served with cocktails that taste ‘just nicer for some reason’, what is there to love about the slow, European life? Well, maybe that’s it, but why does it appeal so much?
Not being a well-seasoned traveller, I’ve just visited a few new spots this summer: Prague and Madrid. Both notable in their own respects, but one thing that unites them is this sense of the slower European life that seems lost in anglosphere countries, particularly in my own – England.
While many of us feel the excitement and burgeoning career opportunities major capitals such as London offers, it still feels inferior to that slower pace of living. Both have their place, and I confess to adoring both, but can one feel at home in two houses? Personally, I say yes.
Whenever I visit London, I do enjoy the fast-paced living, the connectivity of it all, but I do wonder why it is all so fast. Economics? I suppose, but life is not just the economy. The time you have to sit down when you are abroad and absorb everything, not least your third coffee, is such a pleasant approach I’d love in my ordinary English life, where real appreciation of things (outdoor neighbourliness, late gatherings, peaceful streets, and so on) can be had. Working to live, not living to work, as they say.
Some would say these two ways of living are in contradiction, and that may be so, but I think the modern perception of English life is just that: modern and only found in the megalopolis. Former Prime Minister John Major typified his view of Englishness by saying, ‘Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers and, as George Orwell said, ‘Old maids bicycling to holy communion through the morning mist’.
That remote and peculiar vision of English living may be slow and not quite European, but if the European sense of slow living boils down to a simple appreciation for good company, good places, and good food, then that’s something quite attainable in England and very much something I can get on board with, abroad or otherwise.
For what it’s worth, here are some more photos of my trip to Madrid, the last hoorah for the foreseeable summer.
