Never Been Abroad

Author: iSab

  • Charcoal sketch of Table Mountain rising flat-topped over Cape Town and the wide bay, a scrap of cloud spilling over its rim - never been abroad

    Cape Town

    Cape Town is one of the few places I was offered not just to visit but to work in — and let go. I keep a receipt for this particular longing.

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  • Charcoal sketch of Santa Maria della Salute across the misty Venice lagoon at dawn, a lone gondola on the water - never been abroad

    Venice

    No city has been handed to me more often, or visited less. I have owned Venice for thirty years without once paying the fare.

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  • Charcoal sketch of the Varanasi ghats at dawn from a boat on the Ganga, temple spires and mist over the river - never been abroad

    Varanasi

    Of all the places I have not been, Varanasi is the unforgivable one — a night’s train from home, and somehow never once made.

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  • Charcoal sketch of Lake Zürich at first light, a single white pleasure-boat on the flat pale water, the low old town and faint alps beyond - never been abroad

    Zürich

    I know Zürich the way you know a word you have read a hundred times and never once heard said aloud.

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