As part of my sabbatical I’m using a blog/website to record my reading and experiences of labyrinths, my walking of the Thames footpath (184 miles from the source at Kemble to the barrier at Greenwich) and anything else that catches my attention. The posts are carried on “The journey so far page”.

The proverb from which this site has found a name is quoted in a blog post from Prodigal Kiwi(s) and catches, I think, the mood of space and exploration appropriate to a time of Sabbatical.

In the blog Paul Fromont refers to a newspaper article by Stuart Jeffries called “A world without planes” . Jeffries says

“Alain de Botton, author of The Art of Travel, reminds us of the old Arabic saying that the soul invariably travels at the speed of a camel: “This new widespread ‘camel pace’ would return travellers to a wisdom that their medieval pilgrim ancestors had once known very well,” he suggests. “These medieval pilgrims had gone out of their way to make travel as slow as possible, avoiding even the use of boats and horses in favour of their own feet.”

When I first read that I assumed the quote was from “the Art of Travel”. However having read the book I’m pretty sure it’s not. I think Jeffries is only naming the book to identify the author

He’s actually quoting from this article by de Botton

Thanks to Tim Ross who designed the header artwork for this website and achieved so much with so few pixels