Longtime Readers will be very familiar with my penchant for travel, especially to the U.K. and parts of Euroland.
However, as I’ve been paging through my travel pic folders to find landscapes and cityscapes to post on Thursdays, a feeling of gloom and melancholy is starting to make its appearance.
I’m not sure I want to travel internationally again.
There are several reasons I make that statement, but let me deal with the easier one first.
I’m getting old, and while my overall health is pretty good (according to my doctor, not just for my age but for just about any age), I’m not sure how I’d feel about, for example, climbing up the steep cobbled street from the ferry dock at Meersburg to the town itself on top of the hill.

Hell, it was tough when I last did it — in 2004 — so now, over two decades later… you get my drift. And I loved Meersburg, with a passion.
Also, when strolling around cities like Paris or London, I thought nothing of walking all day — I mean, for those who are familiar with the cities, from Notre Dame to Sacré Coeur and back to our hotel next to the Sorbonne; or from the V&A Museum to World’s End at the other end of Chelsea, and back.


Either of those little jaunts would take me two days, now.
Which brings me to my second thought.
Even if I could do those walks, I’m not so sure I’d want to because of the crime that seems to have overtaken most of Europe’s cities. It’s not that I’m afraid of becoming a victim of some Rolex Ripper on Bond Street or Rue Royale; I’m not a fearful person by nature — but I can be an aggressive person when faced by thuggishness of that kind, and I don’t want to deal with the possibility of having to explain to an unsympathetic bobby or gendarme why some little scrote is lying there screaming with a broken arm or, for that matter, having to deal with the NHS or its French equivalent when said little scrote hacked at me with a machete because I had the effrontery to refuse his attempt at property redistribution.
And we all know how the Filth in Britishland regard the matter of self-defense Over There. Nothing puts a damper on the travel experience like having to explain to some judge why you didn’t want to just let the little choirboy take your property and shake your head sorrowfully at your loss. That you applied your walking-stick to the little shit’s cranium (in lieu of having the old 1911 at hand) would no doubt land you in Serious Trouble, just as your attitude to the cops being more or less on the criminal’s side rather than on yours might also result in the cop’s uniform being ruined by the flow of blood (his).
Altogether, not a prospect worth spending thousands of dollars (which I don’t have) just to visit their poxy paradise.
And then there’s this little nugget, from one of my most-favored places on the planet:
Most famous districts in Vienna are in the heart of the city and during summer or at Christmas season they become overcrowded, which can lead to pickpocketing, mugging and even terrorist attacks. In these areas frequented by tourists, bus and train stations, people around you need to be carefully watched and your possessions should be kept close to you.
WTF? Now add to that the chance that some “migrant” takes offense that your female companion doesn’t have her head covered to his satisfaction… do you see where I’m going with this?
Fuck that for a tale.
One might think, given all the above, that the places to visit in Europe would be those which haven’t allowed untrammeled African- or Muslim incursions. We’re talking here of Poland and Hungary, for instance.
But here’s my problem. I would love — love — to visit those two countries, but I’m completely unfamiliar with both their languages, and honestly, I’m not sure that my old brain can handle learning even a smattering of either with the facility that used to be one of my strengths.
This really sucks.
So it may be that at long last, I’ll have to trim Ye Olde Bucquette Lyste of the travel items therein, sadly and regretfully.
I think I’ll just go to the range, assuming my eyesight is still up to the task of seeing the sights of a gun instead of the sights of a foreign city.
Bah.