Advent 2011: Door 6

Because today is the feast of St Nicholas, today's hint features sage advice, not just for Lady Travellers, but for all the boys and girls.

You'd better watch out, you'd better not cry, you'd better not pout, I'm telling you why - Santa Claus is coming to town.

If you've been a VERY good (lady) traveller this year, Santa might bring you a vintage Hermes steamer trunk and a handsome porter to carry it around.

(image via http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com)

Advent 2011: Door 5

Behind Door 5 is not just a hint, but a handy service: a universal postcard template.  Let's face it, nobody really wants to read a blow-by-blow account of everything you've been doing on your travels.  The point of postcards is usually either to rub it in or to sweeten your welcome when you return.  And yes, occasionally because you want someone to know you were thinking of them.

With this in mind, I have devised two templates, each conforming to the short and sweet(ish) model.  All you have to do is to fill in your own text in the square brackets.  Fun!

Template 1: Wish you were here!

[Place A] reminds me of you.  Do you remember when we watched the [sunset/sunrise/rain] in [Place A/entirely unconnected Place B]?  Partir, c'est mourir un peu.*

Template 2:  Ha ha!  I'm here and you're not!

Eating delicious [place-appropriate food] [in the sunshine/by the fire].  {HTLT note: Who cares if the fire is imaginary?  Your correspondent will never know.}  The [wine/gluhwein/local grog] is flowing.  [Santé/Prosit/Skål/toast in language of host country]!**

*You can't go wrong with a pretentious quote in French.  

** People are always signing off postcards this way.  Don't argue with tradition.

Need some more inspiration?  You might find it in this song, which is almost enough for me to renounce my cynical attitude to postcards.

Advent 2011: Door 4

Sea bathing

After a course of sea-bathing it is a good plan to have the hair well washed with the yolk of an egg, which should afterwards be thoroughly well rinsed out in clear tepid water.  Avoid hot water, which will cook the egg, with most unpleasing results.  (p185, Hints to Lady Travellers, Lillias Campbell Davidson.)

Advent 2011: Door 3

Courtesy of Ms Davidson, some to-the-point advice from Hints to Lady Travellers.

xl. Ladies Maids

A great nuisance, as a rule, in travelling (p134)

The Cote d'Azur Express

The TGV slows down on the Riviera so that the train journey from Nice to Aix is actually relatively slow.  But this means you have all the more opportunity to admire the view.

As advertised, I was in 1st class, the main benefit of which is the wider seats and quieter carriages.  I had a lovely time.

The train leaves Nice,

passing the Hippodrome de la Cote d'Azure,

many beach clubs and palm trees,

not to mention yachts.

It calls at Antibes, Cannes,

and St Raphael.  The coast gets rockier (fewer yachts),

then the train curves inland for a while, leaving the sea for the colour-saturated hills and fields of Provence and a stop in Les Arcs Draguignan.

Back to the sea for sunset near Toulon and on round the coast to Marseille.

It's dark for the last quick push to Aix, but when you get out the air smells of smoke and winter and your sister and two small boys come to meet you and a warm home awaits with hugs and wine and food.

That's the train from Nice to Aix.

Advent 2011: Door 2

Hints to Lady Travellers has a train theme going today (swing by later for more) so it is only appropriate that the Advent calendar feature a hint on train travel, from no less a person than our spiritual guide, Lillias Campbell Davidson.

"Conciseness in asking for one’s ticket is also a virtue much appreciated by one’s fellow-strugglers at the open window. ‘One first, monthly return, Euston, please,’ is likely to strike the listening ear of a waiter for his or her turn as a considerably superior effort of English to, ‘I want to go to London – Euston Station please. Will you kindly give me a first-class ticket? I should like a return ticket, a monthly return ticket if I can get one. You do issue monthly return tickets, don’t you? I know they do by some of the lines. Or are return tickets on the line only available for a week?"  Hints to Lady Travellers; iv. Booking Offices

Amen, sister.

Advent 2011: Door 1

To recap (for new readers; old readers; readers like my brother who tells me I haven't blogged for six months but then it turns out he hasn't read my blog for six months - which is different) the inaugural Advent Project in 2009 was a great success, the Advent Project of 2010 was a mess, the Advent Project this year is going to try harder.  Behind each door will be a hint, as collected by me over the past two and a bit years of being a Lady Traveller.

Today we have three hints rolled up in one, which is: be more Lady-like.

Hint #1
"Fabrics should be the best you can afford because they stand up to hard usage without crushing or creasing..."  The Lady.  Travel Clothes by Alison Settle.  13th February, 1917

Hint #2

All lady travellers, actual or would-be, should jump to The Lady Magazine's website for hints of this nature and other gems from ladies, past and present.  (It makes such excellent sense for HTLT to link to The Lady that I don't know why I didn't do it before now.)

Hint #3
This link to The Lady (I enjoy alliteration very much) was prompted by my reading, yesterday, on a plane, Rachel Johnson's A Diary of The Lady about her first year and a half as editor of this legendary magazine.  I used to pass by The Lady's office in Covent Garden and marvel at the preserved-in-aspic covers displayed in its windows.  (And also make up Mills and Boon-inspired stories about answering an ad in the Lady, which would eventually result in a Brilliant Marriage and custody of a Great House somewhere (on reflection, perhaps more Barbara Cartland than Mills and Boon.))  Anyway, the book is very funny, an excellent companion on a journey and also confirms that people in real life do actually speak like characters in a Jilly Cooper novel.