Travel Philosophy and Lisbon

"We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place.  We stay there even though we go away.  And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.  We travel to ourselves when we go to a place we have covered a stretch of our lives, no matter how brief it may have been."

I share this quote from Night Train to Lisbon, by Pascal Mercier, because it captures how I feel and describes it far better than I can.  It explains why there are so many places where, when I return to them, I feel as if I am going home – Italy and Spain particularly, and also Portugal.

As a travel movie, it made me want to go to Lisbon more urgently, now.  But to the travel aspect, the story weaves philosophy, history and culture.  It captures the essense of the place geographically and also historically.   You can’t visit Lisbon through this story without wanting to visit it in real life, but with a greater understanding of its history, culture and people, and possibly of oneself – which I believe is always true of travel.

Now, to read the book: