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What draws a mystery writer from Chicago to the cobblestone streets and alchemical history of Prague? How can a city’s mystical atmosphere inspire a novel, and what happens when grief follows you to one of Europe’s most beautiful destinations? Lisa M. Lilly shares how Prague captured her imagination, weaving the city’s gothic romance and ancient legends into her latest detective novel. From the astronomical clock that’s been marking time since 1410 to the legendary golem still said to rest in a synagogue, discover how this enchanting city became both a setting for fiction and a place of personal reflection. Lisa M. Lilly writes detective novels and supernatural thrillers, and also the author of Writing as a Second Career: Books for Writers. Her latest book, The Skeptical Man, features Prague in the Czech Republic How Prague’s architecture and eerie beauty immediately captivated a Chicago-based writer The city’s rich alchemical history and the famous golem legend, from medieval mysticism to modern AI parallels Navigating grief while traveling after losing a close friend Rooftop dining experiences and local Czech specialties, from monastery beer gardens to traditional duck restaurants Books about Prague including Wolf on a String, Prague the Mystical City, and more You can find Lisa at LisaLilly.com  You can also take a day trip from Prague to Kutna Hora where you can find Sedlec Ossuary, or The Bone Church, which inspired my thriller, Crypt of Bone. Transcript of the interview Jo: Hello Travelers. I’m Jo Frances Penn, and today I’m here with Lisa M. Lilly. Hi Lisa. Lisa: Hi. It’s so good to see you, and thank you for having me on the podcast. I’m really excited. Jo: Oh yeah, it’s going to be fun today. Just a little introduction. Lisa writes detective novels and supernatural thrillers, and also the author of Writing as a Second Career: Books for Writers. Her latest book, The Skeptical Man, features Prague in the Czech Republic, which we are talking about today. So Lisa, you are in America. Why were you drawn to visit Prague and research the city for this book? Lisa: It happened the other way around in a way. Two years ago, I went to Prague by way of Krakow because that was the main city we were going to. My travel companion and I went because my grandparents were originally from that area, came to the United States in the early 1920s or so. And I had never been. And so my friend Steve said, “Well, I’ve always wanted to see Prague, but let’s wrap that in too.” And I more or less just said, “Okay, yeah, that sounds good.” And from the second I saw the city, we took a train there from Paris, because we also went to Paris. I just saw the architecture and we came into Old Town. And I thought, “Oh, I’m going to want to come back here. This is a beautiful city.” And as we walked around, I was very intrigued by the history of alchemy in Prague and we did not get to the Alchemist Museum. That was on my list to go to next time. But I started thinking about it. All these story ideas – I’m very motivated by place and I had not even been sure I was going to write another book in the series right then. I was thinking of taking a break and all these story ideas started coming to mind and the more places we saw, the more I’d think, “Oh, this would be a great scene. This would be a great place to set something.” I think Prague is so beautiful and kind of eerie in some places that it just evokes so many ideas. St Charles Bridge and Prague Castle Photo by JFPenn Jo: Yeah, I think it’s interesting. Well, first of all, you said Krakow and you got the train from Paris. I mean, obviously Krakow’s closer. You could have got the train. Lisa: Well, we went Paris to Prague, Prague to Krakow. Jo: Oh, okay. Yeah, because it’s really – for people who might not know, you know, the Czech Republic is really right in the center of Europe, well connected with Germany, Austria, Poland, Slovakia. So, and the trains. And this always surprises me in America, because I’ve been over to the US a lot and the trains are terrible. Whereas in Europe, you could just get everywhere by train, right? So I love that you arrived by train as an American. Lisa: Well, it turned out for us, it wasn’t the best way to go because we had worked with this travel agent who specialized in trains because we thought, “Oh, trains would be great. We’d always heard this about Europe.” And it was in terms of connectivity, but she didn’t think to tell us we were doing this almost four-week trip, so we had tons of bags. We each had two big rolling bags, two smaller bags. And we were picturing – I know you’ve taken the Amtrak where you get the compartments and you could stow your bags above and check your bags. So we’re lugging all these bags and there’s nowhere to put them because — Jo: We all have backpacks! Lisa: Yeah, exactly. And people are just looking at us like, “What? What are you doing?” And there’s not a porter and we didn’t… so I would say to people, yeah, be prepared. I enjoyed the trip, and I talked to some people from Prague to Krakow. One of my favorite parts of the trip was talking to people in the compartment who were telling me – who were Polish and were telling me about all these traditions, and I’m asking them questions. It was wonderful. But yeah, don’t take eight bags. And don’t… yeah, do it if you’ve got like one bag and a backpack and know your stops. We got off on the wrong stop. We didn’t know there were two Dresden stops. So we’re out and we’re like, “Why can we not find this connection? We need to get to Prague.” But people were so helpful. I can’t tell you how many people offered to help me with a bag or like block the train door when they were going to close it on us because very serious in Germany about the train times or help me find… I just went up to someone and said, “I don’t know how to get the train to Prague” and they just happened to speak English and were taking that train and said, “Okay, follow, follow us.” Very patient. Very nice people. Just wonderful. Jo: Oh yeah. Well it sounds like you had an adventure in getting there. Lisa: It was. We flew the next time. Jo: Yeah. Okay, so let’s come back. So you said the moment you kind of saw the city and the architecture was all amazing. What were some of the highlights, like your favorite parts of the city? Lisa: Yeah. I loved, you know, this is very touristy, but I love the Charles Bridge because there’s just so much going on there. We walked through during the day and at night there are singers, we saw dancers. We saw a couple dressed up as a bride and groom doing a whole song and dance thing together, vendors. And of course I thought, “What a great place for a chase scene, a foot chase scene,” which ended up in my book. So I loved that. I loved the Old Town Square, the whole Old Town neighborhood. I really enjoyed… We went to see the – I’m sure you’ve seen it – the astronomical clock, which plays I think every half hour. And you can see all these figures coming out. And I think it’s the… Jo: I just wrote this down. It’s the from 1410, the world’s oldest working astronomical clock. Lisa: Yeah. It’s… and you see people just standing there watching, which is how we found it. We had trouble finding it because we came to the square in a direction where the way the buildings were and the churches, you couldn’t actually see it and finally saw all these people in this narrow area that’s along the side. That’s something else I love too, though, just the streets and how you could wander and you’d end up behind the buildings and come out another place. In Chicago where I live, we’re on a grid, so almost everything is square blocks, which is great for navigating but not as intriguing for walking around. So I love the cobblestone streets. I love the Prague Castle. I went there a number of times and we don’t have castles here either, so it’s very… that’s like a proper castle. Jo: Oh yeah. We should say, if you stand on St. Charles Bridge and look out, it sort of dominates the skyline there, doesn’t it? Lisa: It is what you think of as a castle and beautiful to see at night. And that reminds me just the river itself, the Vltava River. I found so peaceful. I spent a lot of time sitting by the river and reading and just watching it sparkle. And in any weather, just, I think it might be the prettiest river I’ve seen. The water seems so clear and it’s very tranquil. It’s also very shallow. I found out, so perhaps that’s why it looks so pretty. I don’t know. But the boat tours can’t go very far because they run into the bottom of the river. They just can’t keep going. Jo: You went this year as well, did you? Lisa: Yes. I went two years ago and went back this year and did a number of boat trips on it. Jo: I was there in 2015, so a decade ago. I don’t remember the river being low, but then I was there in the winter. And also this summer has been one of the driest. Lisa: Yes, I didn’t think about that. They were telling us as the river was low, and they did show us the different times that had flooded. We took one with a small boat where they could go into, I don’t know the right word, but the sort of offshoots of the river and would show us where the flooding had been and where the river level was at different points and that. Yeah, I didn’t think about that. It was very low when we went. Jo: And you’ve been both in the summer, both times? Lisa: Both in the summer in mid-May through mid-June. Just beautiful weather both times. We did a lot of rooftop dining, which you could see the whole city, and you could see the Prague Castle. And it’s particularly beautiful at night when the sun sets and it outlines the castle. Jo: Yeah, it’s very kind of gothic romance. But I

What would you sacrifice for the perfect vintage? Can ancient pagan rituals and biodynamic winemaking create something truly extraordinary—or terrifying? In this conversation from the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast with Natalie Maclean, award-winning author J.F. Penn discusses the inspiration for her folk horror novel Blood Vintage, set in the vineyards of Somerset, England. We explore the dark side of viticulture, from poisonous plants and blood sacrifices to the hard realities of small-scale winemaking and the mysterious practices of biodynamic agriculture. J.F. Penn is the award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers, dark fantasy, crime, horror, short stories, and travel memoir. Jo lives in Bath, England and enjoys a nice G&T. New Zealand wine memories. Pinot Noir tours in South Otago, including Mount Difficulty and Peregrine Vineyard, paired with wild venison and legendary Bluff oysters The birth of Blood Vintage. How a tour of Woodchester Valley vineyard, frost candles, and a note in the ancient Domesday Book sparked a dark story English wine’s climate change renaissance. How warming temperatures are making England’s sparkling wines competitive with Champagne. Inside biodynamic winemaking, inspired by a visit to Limeburn Hill Vineyard, Chew Magna, Somerset. From burying cow horns to dynamisation rituals and creating a self-contained ecosystem The dangers and romance of viticulture, and for more on this, check out the interview with Caro Feely, The Taste of Place. Folk horror and the ‘terroir’ of terror. Exploring the question at the heart of the book: What would you sacrifice to create (or taste) the perfect vintage? You can find Blood Vintage on all platforms in all formats now. This discussion was first broadcast across two episodes on Unreserved Wine Talk with Natalie Maclean in Oct 2024 [Blending biodynamics and suspense; Wine and folklore]. You can also watch the full interview on video. Transcript of the interview Natalie: Jo (J.F.) Penn is an award-winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of horror, thrillers, dark fantasy, crime, and travel memoir, as well as short stories. She’s also an award-winning podcaster. Her podcast is amazing, by the way—The Creative Penn. I listen to it every week, and you should too, if you have any interest in books or reading. She has a Master’s in Theology from the University of Oxford, and her latest novel is called Blood Vintage. It’s a folk horror story set in an English vineyard. I just finished reading it and it’s wonderful, Jo. You are joining us now from your home in Bath, which is nestled in the beautiful countryside of Somerset, England, about a hundred miles west of London. Welcome, Jo. I’m so glad you’re here with us. Jo: Oh, I’m so excited, Natalie. An excuse to drink wine with a friend! New Zealand Wine Experiences Natalie: Before we dive into your book, tell us about the Pinot Noir tours and festivals in the South Otago region that you attended while you were living in New Zealand. Jo: I lived in New Zealand for six years, from 2000 to 2006. It was one of those mid-twenties “go backpacking, fall in love, stay, get married, get divorced, get remarried” stories. You understand? Natalie: Oh wow, you were busy! Jo: Yes, exactly. But I did a Pinot Noir tour in South Otago, and it is quite a famous region for the Pinot Noir grape. I wanted to tell you about two particular vineyards. One is called Mount Difficulty, which is a wonderful name in that region because the mountains—the Remarkables—are really high and it’s a pretty hardcore walking region, skiing region in the winter. And the other one is called Peregrine Vineyard. It’s a beautiful region for the nature, but Peregrine have created this incredible architecture. The roof of the winery is shaped like the wings of a peregrine falcon, and I particularly remember that tour. For people who don’t know, it’s out of Queenstown in the very southeast of New Zealand. So it’s really far south. Gets very cold in the winter, but highly recommended. And you are the best at pairing, but I was going to pair it with New Zealand wild venison, which is something you get a lot of around there. Have you tasted the New Zealand Pinots? Natalie: Oh, I love them. New Zealand is better known for Sauvignon Blanc, but I think the Pinot Noirs are even more spectacular. They’ve got this nervy, edgy acidity that I love. It’s almost like the wine vibrates in your glass, and it’s so food-friendly because acidity is to wine what salt is to food. It brings forward flavor. Gorgeous wines, absolutely. Jo: Since you mentioned the Sauvignon Blanc, I also wanted to recommend a very specific New Zealand oyster as a pairing with that, which is the Bluff oyster. And I think you like oysters, right? Natalie: I write about them, yeah. It’s the one thing I can’t get past—it’s a texture thing. But anyway. Jo: Okay, for people who love oysters who are listening, I love oysters. I’ve eaten oysters all over the world, and the Bluff oyster in New Zealand has a very short winter season, but it is incredible to me. It is the best, and I have a vivid memory of drinking a Sauvignon Blanc with a Bluff oyster—maybe a whole dozen oysters—on Lake Wakatipu in the winter sun. So I highly recommend that pairing as well, and it’s very hard to get them anywhere else in the world. Bluff oysters New Zealand Photo by JFPenn Natalie: Oh wow. I’ll have to make a note of that. My husband likes oysters, so we’ll do that. I love that. Great evocative image there that carries through with your book. Introducing Blood Vintage Natalie: So let’s set the stage for your book, Blood Vintage. You did a serious amount of research into biodynamic winemaking and winemaking generally. Before we talk about that, maybe share the overview of the book story with us, please. Jo: This is the back of the book. Blood Vintage is a special edition, so I shall read it for you: The perfect vintage requires the darkest sacrifice. In the rolling hills of Somerset, England, an ancient evil ripens alongside the grapes of Standing Stones Cellars. Rebecca Langford never expected her architectural career to lead to the secluded rural village of Windbridge Hollow. But after a violent clash with eco-activists, she flees the chaos of London, desperate for a new start. She seeks refuge at Standing Stone Cellars, a vineyard renowned for its award-winning wines and mysterious history, nestled in the shadow of ancient oaks and standing stones that have watched over the land for millennia. But this vineyard is no sanctuary. From the primal fires of Beltane to the chilling shadow of Samhain, Rebecca finds herself ensnared in an ancient cycle of sacrifice and rebirth. The disappearance of her fellow workers, amidst evidence of blood rites, forces her to confront a horrifying truth: Standing Stone’s exceptional vintage is nourished by more than just sunlight and soil. As the veil between worlds grows thin, Rebecca must make an impossible choice: embrace the dark legacy of the vineyard and secure her place amongst its guardians, or risk becoming the next offering to the insatiable horned god that demands his due. Blood Vintage is an atmospheric descent into folk horror where the line between sacred and profane blurs with each sip of wine. Lose yourself in a world where pagan ritual and modern ambitions collide, and discover the terrible price of belonging in a place where the very earth demands blood.” Natalie: Ooh, I love that. That is such a great description that really captures it—so atmospheric, so dark and brooding, and yet, bonus for us who love wine, wine is running right through it, woven into it. Wine Pairings for the Book Natalie: Before we dive into that, I’m itching to get there. You selected a wine to pair with your book, as have I. So let’s hear about yours first. What is it? Jo: Yes, the blood vintage itself would be the Samhain wine from Limeburn Hill Vineyard. We’re going to come back to that, but that’s really hard to get. So I’ve gone with the Pinot Rosé from Woodchester Valley, which is where the original idea came from. I love a rosé, and we’ll obviously talk about where this has come from. I have my glass ready. This has been chilled. Woodchester Valley, Pinot Rosé—and I read about it, it’s 100% Pinot Précoce, the early Pinot Noir. Natalie: Oh, lovely. I love a rosé. I’ve chosen a more brooding, darker wine for you and your book. This is from Italy because we just don’t get many English wines here in Canada. But this one, the label has a woman and her hair is in flames because fire is a metaphor, but also the sun. Stars are all around her. It comes from the Donna Fugata winery in Italy, which means “fugitive woman” or “woman on the run,” which I think Rebecca is a little bit—from her architectural career and she’s escaping out to the countryside with the vineyards. Anyway, lots of metaphors, but I love the labels on this. So let’s have a sip to get going here. Cheers! Jo: Oh, you have a goblet there! Natalie: Yes, my special glass. I bought this 20 years ago. I was in Prague with a friend of mine. It was winter, and I saw these glasses. I drank a lot more red wine at the time, and I was like, this is perfect, I love these. And this is one of those times where, you know, I’m backpacking—do I really want to take glass anywhere? But we had such a lovely trip, and these memories of drinking together are important. So that’s the story of the glass. I know it’s not perfect for rosé, we’re not going to get technical here. Natalie: But for those who want to know, an ideal glass is clear and has a big enough bowl so that you can swirl it. But I love the goblet. Very atmospheric, very apt. Very blood vintage! Jo: Very gothic. That’s lovely. Natalie: Okay, tell us what drew you to t

Why is Mexico’s Day of the Dead such a beautiful way to remember our loved ones who have died? What are the elements that go into the altar? How can tourists respectfully experience the tradition? In this fascinating conversation, Luisa Navarro, founder of Mexico in My Pocket and author of Mexico’s Day of the Dead: A Celebration of Life through Stories and Photos, shares her personal journey from rejecting her Mexican heritage to celebrating it, while revealing the true beauty and meaning behind one of Mexico’s most misunderstood traditions. Luisa Navarro is the founder and CEO of Mexico in My Pocket, and the author of Mexico’s Day of the Dead: A Celebration of Life through Stories and Photos. Luisa’s childhood struggle with being Mexican American and how she transformed from rejecting her culture to becoming its passionate advocate The true meaning behind Día de los Muertos, its indigenous Aztec origins, and how it differs completely from Halloween The significance of ofrendas (altars), including sugar skulls, pan de muerto, marigolds, and photographs of deceased loved ones How different days honor different types of deaths Traditional foods like pan de muerto, café de olla, and how families share meals with both the living and the dead How to respectfully experience Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico while avoiding appropriation and understanding the difference between authentic traditions and commercialized parades You can find Luisa at MexicoInMyPocket.com and Mexico’s Day of the Dead book here. Transcript of the interview Jo: Hello, travelers. I’m Jo Frances Penn, and today I’m here with Luisa Navarro. Hi Luisa. Luisa: Hi. It’s so wonderful to be here with you today. Jo: Great to meet you. Now, just a quick introduction. Luisa is the founder and CEO of Mexico in My Pocket, and the author of Mexico’s Day of the Dead: A Celebration of Life through Stories and Photos, which is fantastic. So first up, just tell us a bit more about you and your Mexican heritage and how you bring that into your life and your business in Brooklyn. Luisa: Yes, of course. So I was actually born in Dallas, Texas. I am Mexican American. My mom is from Tila, which is Northern Mexico, and my dad is from Michoacán, which is more central and it’s actually where Día de los Muertos is very much celebrated. Growing up in Dallas, I struggled originally with my identity a lot being Mexican American — because what happened was I went to school and I only spoke Spanish because Spanish was my first language. My mom insisted that all four of her kids learn Spanish first before going to school. And then when we were in school, we all struggled to make friends because we only spoke Spanish. The teachers would criticize my mom, but my mom insisted that we would be perfectly fine and that we would learn English eventually, and she was right. And so eventually I became bilingual. And during that time, at a very young age, I discovered young kids were saying horrible things about Mexicans and I didn’t know how to handle that. I realized, wait, I think I’m Mexican. And so long story short, I didn’t want to be Mexican at a very young age. I was about four or five years old. I have these memories very vividly. And so I came home to my mom in Dallas and I said, I’m no longer Luisa, I’m now Hannah. I think I said Hana, my mom always says I pronounced it very interestingly, but I was like, I’m Hana. And I will not respond if you don’t call me Hana. Yeah, I mean, it’s very sad. But luckily, luckily, luckily, thank God my mom and my grandmothers all came to my rescue and they were like, no, these kids are wrong, and here’s why, and here’s why being Mexican is incredible. And so luckily for me, I did a 180. I very much embraced my culture. I became a journalist. And during that journey as a journalist, I noticed that these negative types of stories continued to happen. But instead of getting upset with people, I never really blamed the kids who said these things because I realized they were being taught this by their parents. As you get older, you realize this is being learned. And so when I became a journalist, I realized that the media was always covering us in a very negative light. And being American is amazing because we have mainstream media here. We have the power to tell stories, but unfortunately I have seen as a Mexican American, a lot of those stories that are told about Mexico in the US are negative. I wanted to do something positive. So as a journalist, I started a side project called Mexico in My Pocket and it was a blog. And on that blog I would share very positive stories about Mexico and our culture, and — I slowly started to learn more about my heritage and I became very passionate about it. And I started that blog in 2015. So it’s been 10 years now. So basically my journalism career brought me to New York City. I went to Columbia Journalism School and then eventually I got out of the news and I started my own company called Mexico in My Pocket, where we sell beautiful handcrafted items from all over Mexico. And I have the privilege of telling the story of how these products are made, and the stories of our culture. Jo: I think that’s wonderful. It’s really interesting to hear about how that felt for you as a child. But of course, you’ve chosen one really interesting topic, Day of the Dead, which in itself many people struggle with negative stereotypes around Day of the Dead. So let’s just start with sort of basics. What is Day of the Dead? When is it? And why did you choose this topic? Because you could have chosen lots of different ones. Luisa: I could have chosen so many different topics. And the irony is that when I was little, I also very much struggled with the fear of death. And I actually don’t think I really loved Day of the Dead as a child because my mom would decorate with skeletons during that time of year. And I feared it and I was like, this is terrifying. I don’t want to talk about death. My biggest fear was my parents dying. But the reason that I decided to write a book about Day of the Dead, and for those of you who don’t know what Day of the Dead is, is once a year. It’s a Mexican tradition, it’s rooted in Mexico. Once a year we come together and we honor our loved ones who have died. And I think it’s the most incredible holiday. I think that everyone around the world should take time to once a year, honor their loved ones who have died. You know, we celebrate our moms once a year. We celebrate our dads once a year. We celebrate love. Once a year, we should be celebrating our loved ones who have died. And I think that Mexico is the true emblem and symbol and example for us to honor the dead once a year. And they’ve set an incredible example for us not to fear death, but to take control of it the most that we can and to celebrate our loved ones who have died and not forget them. And so the reason I wrote this book, there’s a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons was just like the reason I started my blog. I felt like — I did not see an accurate or beautiful representation of what Day of the Dead is, and I felt like I wanted something to preserve these traditions so that I could pass it down to the future generations, including my son. Because I worried that being Mexican American, I am the first generation to live here, but I’m so proud to be Mexican and I never want to lose sight of that. And I want my son to also know about his heritage, his ancestry, his traditions. And so I wrote this book for the future generations so that they could learn and always celebrate these traditions, no matter how far removed they are from their origin, from their ancestry’s origin country. Another reason I wrote the book was — There is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding when it comes to Day of the Dead. So I have a gift shop in Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn, and people would come into our store and they would see the altar that I build in the store. And they would ask us if we were celebrating the devil. And I was like, okay. We need a book because I want to clarify just how beautiful Day of the Dead is. And I think the name Day of the Dead, I think anything associated with death can be very off-putting because I think just like me as a child fearing death. I think a lot of people fear death and I think they don’t want to talk about it. And so that inspired me to write this book and to shed light on how I think Mexico is doing an incredible job at basically honoring our loved ones who have died. And if you’ve experienced death, I think you can relate to this, that it is very painful, not just because the person died, but you feel like you’re not allowed to talk about them anymore. And Day of the Dead is a time where you can come together once a year and talk about your loved ones who have died without having to worry about anyone judging you. And I think it’s so beautiful. Jo: You mentioned your son there and I noticed in the book, which is a beautiful book, both the words and obviously the images, it is really beautiful and colorful. And there are children in the book, and this is another thing that I think some people get hung up on, like we should only talk about death if we’re adults or whatever. But Mexican tradition seems to bring in the children a lot more. Perhaps you could comment on that, like how is it so natural that everyone in the family is included? Luisa: I mean, everyone in the family is included because on Day of the Dead, we’re honoring our family members. And so it’s also a wonderful opportunity to educate your children on their ancestors and on their loved ones who have died. And quite frankly, one of the things that was most moving to me when I traveled to Oaxaca that I didn’t know about was an altar that honored babies. And so there’s room for everyone, like death affect

What’s it really like to be an archaeologist in the Middle East? How can modern travelers experience Egypt beyond the pyramids and tourist traps? What will survive from our digital age when future archaeologists dig through our ruins, and how does studying ancient civilizations change the way you see the world today? Canadian ex-archaeologist and award-winning author Sean McLachlan shares insights from 25 years of full-time writing and decades of travel through Egypt, Morocco, and the Middle East. Sean McLachlan is a Canadian ex-archaeologist and the multi-award-winning author of history, travel, and fiction. His books include The Masked Man of Cairo Historical Detective series, the Moroccan Mysteries, and post-apocalyptic sci-fi series, Toxic World. Sean’s previous archaeology career in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, including dangerous moments The reality of archaeological fieldwork vs. Hollywood portrayals, from Roman bath games to 3000-year-old fingerprints His Masked Man of Cairo detective series set in 1919 Egypt during the independence movement Hidden gems in Egypt beyond ancient sites: Islamic Cairo, desert oases, Coptic monasteries, and the new museums Practical travel advice for Egypt and the Middle East, including cultural sensitivity and safety tips His post-apocalyptic fiction and thoughts on what will survive from our civilization for future archaeologists You can find Sean at SeanMcLachlan.net and his books here on Amazon. Transcript of the interview Jo: Hello Travelers. I’m Joanna Penn, and today I’m here with Sean McLachlan. Hi Sean. Sean: Hey, Joanna. Jo: It’s great to have you on the show. Just a little introduction. Sean is a Canadian ex-archaeologist and the multi-award-winning author of history, travel, and fiction. His books include The Masked Man of Cairo Historical Detective series, the Moroccan Mysteries, and post-apocalyptic sci-fi series, Toxic World. Wow, lots there. Sean, you were just telling me how long you’ve been a full-time author? Sean: It’s my 25th anniversary this year as a matter of fact. Jo: That is just incredible. But before we get into that, tell us about your previous career in archaeology, because obviously I’m fascinated with it. Lots of people are. What is the reality of the archaeologist’s job? Are you really like Indiana Jones?! Sean: Well, not quite Indiana Jones. I worked for about 10 years in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, got a master’s degree. And it’s an amazing job actually. There’s a lot of meticulous excavation and fieldwork, surveying, a lot of lab work, and it is a lot of fun. I ended up shifting out of it because I didn’t like the academic side of it too much – the fighting for office space and funding and the petty backstabbing that you see in so many university departments. I really liked the fun stuff, which was the actual fieldwork. And as far as being Indiana Jones, well I never got shot at when I was in the field. I did get shot at by accident once when I was hiking in Arizona, but that’s a different story. And the only real danger was once there was a Palestinian Viper on the site when we were working in Tel Gezer in Israel, Which is this really nasty snake that the venom can kill you in 20 minutes. But we were working near a kibbutz and one of the kibbutz members had a tractor and ran it over. So that was the end of that problem. Jo: But just sort of coming back on, you said you didn’t like the academic side but you did enjoy the dig work and the lab work. So in my head, I know what dig work looks like from the movies, obviously. What did you do in the labs and — What time period were you working on? Sean: Well, I worked in several different time periods. The biggest site I worked at was Tel Gezer, which was an old archaeological site in Israel. And a tell is basically an artificial mound where people will build a settlement usually on high ground. And then people will build on those foundations and people will build. And after several thousand years, you end up with an artificial hill, which is all just archaeological deposits and you get this a lot throughout the Middle East and they’re called Tell, which is Arabic for Hill. And we were digging through that. And the main thing we were doing in those field seasons was we were working through an Egyptian governor’s palace when the Egyptians conquered the Levant. And so we found some nice hieroglyphics and all that. And also the city gate, which was commissioned by King Solomon. It’s actually mentioned in the Old Testament. So we’re working on that. And that was actually the second time I got in danger in archaeology, both at the same site because we had these things to either side of the gate called casemate walls, where you had an inner wall and an outer wall, and then a storage room in the center. And so we were digging down through the deposits to find all the stuff that was inside and somebody was working on the other side of the wall, and I’m about eight feet down. And this guy had found a big rock and he thought it was just a deposit. It was too big to move, so he was slamming at it with a sledgehammer, but what he didn’t realize, it was part of the wall. So I’m eight feet down with this not very stable wall above me of these giant stones, and suddenly it starts going boom, boom. Jo: Buried alive! Sean: Fastest I ever moved! I teleported out of that pit. I was just, one moment I’m in there and the other moment I’m about 10 feet away screaming my head off. Jo: And one of the tells I’ve been to is Megiddo, which is the biblical Armageddon. Sean: Megiddo is amazing. Jo: What got me into writing the types of things that we both write is The Source by James Michener, which of course is based on that. Sean: Well, I never worked at Megiddo. Michener’s book was amazing though. I read that in university and it was well worth reading. I actually read it in Bulgaria when I was on another excavation, and this was an interesting site because — One of the exciting things about archaeology is you never know what you’re going to find — and this site was on really high hill at this sharp turn of the Struma River, which runs through Bulgaria, down to Thessaloniki on the Greek coast. We’d seen some Roman deposits come out of there. So we thought we were going to get a Roman village or a villa on top of this high ground. So we start digging down and the first thing we come to is ash. And we keep digging. We get more and more ash and we’re getting all like black hands and everything is poofing up everywhere and we’re sneezing black. It’s terrible. And we went through about eight feet of this stuff and we asked around, and we found out that that had been a beacon from the Balkan Wars from 1912, because they were worried the Turks were going to come up the river valley and attack. And so this was to signal. So we got through that and then we found the Roman site. But it wasn’t a villa, it was several graves. So we excavated those and we looked down further to see if we’d find more graves. And in the end, actually, we found a very well preserved Bronze Age village. So we went through a good 3000 years of habitation from 1912 all the way back to 1500 BC. Jo: Wow. Sean: So that was a lot of fun. Jo: That is the romance of archaeology, right? That everybody thinks about. And then of course we both put that kind of stuff in our books now. But let’s talk about that because I wondered if you see things differently. I think when I went to Megiddo, I was kind of seeing the layers of story. You travel a lot and you also research these different areas of history. How do you look below the surface of what is there to find those stories underneath? Sean: Well, one of the interesting things about archaeological sites is thinking about the people that were there. I was at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, these giant Roman baths, just a few weeks ago. And my favorite part, you’re going through these giant vaulted rooms. They’re still preserved 2000 years later, tile floors. Interesting little drains that are still there, like the drains are still there, so well preserved. But on this sort of marble seat next to one of the pools, somebody had carved the board for an old Roman board game. So these people were sitting there enjoying the caldarium. It’s all steamy and warm, and they’re playing a board game while they got their feet in the pool. I love that, those little details are always the best. And when often you see, when you pick up pieces of pottery where the potter has altered it a bit, just smooth things out, you’ll find their fingerprints or her fingerprints on there. So you got a 3000 year old fingerprint. Jo: I guess then you’re thinking about like who they were. It was really what you were just saying about the ash. That’s really interesting to me because the ash almost has no story because something was burnt there. But what you were saying gave it historical context and it loops back. Sean: Yeah. You’re right. And it looped back to the present day because I was there in ’93 just after the fall of communism. And the new government, which was democratic with a small D, was making it very clear to the Turkish minority that they might be better off moving back to Turkey. And so there was that whole tension. So while that was going on in town, we’re up there seeing the remnants of the last time those two sides had a war. Jo: Yeah, yeah. The historical perspective is so interesting. So one of the places you go a lot is to Egypt and you’ve got this Masked Man of Cairo series, and a lot of us do think, and on this show I’ve talked, we’ve talked about ancient Egypt, but you are writing about a different time period there. So tell us about that time period and what people might think differently. Tell us more about your interest in more modern Egypt Sean: I decided

Have you ever considered a radical change to mark a new chapter in your life? What fears hold you back from taking on a huge challenge, like walking for weeks on your own? Zoe Langley-Wathen talks about conquering her fears on the 630-mile South West Coast Path, and how it led to an even bigger goal: to walk the entire coastline of Great Britain. Zoe is the author of 630 Miles Braver: Midlifing on the South West Coast Path. She’s also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, an award-winning teacher, and host of the HeadRightOut podcast. Why Zoe chose the South West Coast Path to mark a rite of passage into midlife The beautiful highlights and the brutal, challenging aspects of the 630-mile trail Overcoming fears of walking and wild camping solo Practical advice on training, managing physical pain, and preparing for a long walk How the experience built lasting resilience and changed her life trajectory Zoe’s next epic adventure with her husband: walking the 7,300-mile coastline of Great Britain You can find Zoe at HeadRightOut.com You can find my tips on long-distance multi-day solo walking in my book, Pilgrimage: Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways, and more pilgrimage resources here. Transcript of the interview Jo: Hello Travellers, I’m Jo Frances Penn, and today I’m here with Zoe Langley-Wathen. Welcome, Zoe. Zoe: Hi Jo, thank you for having me. Jo: It’s great to have you on the show. Zoe is the author of 630 Miles Braver: Mid-life-ing on the South West Coast Path. She’s also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, an award-winning teacher, and host of the HeadRightOut podcast. Where is the South West Coast Path, how long is it, and why did you decide to walk it for a significant birthday? Zoe: Thank you for having me on. The clue is in the title, 630 Miles Braver. The path is 630 miles long, or 1,014 kilometres. It starts at Minehead on the south-west tip of England and travels all the way down to the toe of Cornwall, where you’ll find Land’s End. It then continues along the coast of Cornwall, Devon, and Dorset, finishing at Poole Harbour, the second largest natural harbour in the world. For people who need to locate it geographically, Minehead is about 60 miles or an hour and three-quarters south-west of Bristol. As for why I did it, it was to mark a rite of passage into midlife. Around 2010, I had a moment of what felt like divine intervention in a bookshop in Wells, Somerset. I walked in and there was a book on a shelf, and I swear there was a shaft of light shining on it: the South West Coast Path Handbook. I had been searching for a path for a long time to mark this rite of passage. I’d considered Kilimanjaro or the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, but none of them resonated. This one just clicked, because I had wanted to do it for about 15 years but never thought myself capable. I thought only gritty, athletic, strong people did the South West Coast Path, not me. I just didn’t think I was enough in any capacity. Suddenly, it was like a lightbulb had been switched on. I grabbed the book, paid for it, and thought, ‘Right, I’m going to do this. I don’t know how, but I’ll figure it out.’ And I did sort out figure it out along the way. Jo: You said you were ‘searching for a path for a long time,’ which is a really interesting phrase. You’d considered more iconic places, but felt a sense of calling to this one.  I feel like I had that for the Camino de Santiago for a really long time. What do you think it is in us as humans that makes us search for a path? Zoe: That’s an interesting question. I’m not sure it’s necessarily a path that is calling us, but rather a need to make sense of our lives. Turning 40 or 50 is a pivot point in our lives where we might need to re-identify with ourselves. For a long time, I had been ‘mum’ and ‘teacher,’ completely immersed in work. For me, it was about challenging myself to do something I didn’t think I was capable of something out of the ordinary. I also wanted to fundraise to make it serve a purpose. But really, whether I was conscious of it or not, I was searching for another side of myself—a stronger version of me. Jo: It seems at midlife we often want to make a change. With a long walk that takes weeks, you have to plan for a literal pivot in your life, like taking a whole summer off. Is the scale of that commitment part of the appeal? It takes, what a month, to six weeks to walk it?  Zoe: It took me 48 days to do it.  I knew I was going to be scared ’cause I was scared. I was definitely fearful. By announcing it at the school where I was working, to friends and family, and even in assemblies, I created accountability. There was no backing out. I knew it was a challenge that felt out of reach, and I think that’s what I was looking for. Taking a week off work feels less momentous than a challenge that is going to take six or seven weeks, and doing it solo. I discovered I was carrying a lot of fears in my rucksack that I perhaps didn’t realise I had. These paths have a way of exposing all sorts of hangups and interesting thoughts, but they also help you sort things out. It can be problems or creative ideas; it was certainly magical for that. Jo: You can deny your problems and escape yourself for a week, but not for six or seven weeks, and all the challenges along the way. Let’s circle back to challenge. Let’s start with what were some of the most beautiful and memorable sections, and I guess we should say that as we record this in 2025, the film version of The Salt Path is out, which is set along the same coastal path and the book by Raynor Winn. You can certainly see some of these amazing sections. What were some of the most beautiful and memorable sections for you? Zoe: There are so many on the South West Coast Path, it’s really hard to choose. But I lived in Dorset for 30 years, so I have to say the Jurassic Coast, which is about 96 miles from Exmouth to Poole, is absolutely beautiful. [I walked part of this from Lyme Regis to Seaton.] The geology, the stunning scenery, the rollercoaster paths… they challenge you to your core, but they are absolutely, exquisitely beautiful. It’s hard to believe that nature has produced something so fabulous. I also really connected with the ruggedness of North Devon and Cornwall, particularly around Bude in North Cornwall and Zennor, which is down towards Land’s End. The quaintness of the cottages, the interest of the architecture, the churches… there’s a church on a beach, the Church of St. Winwaloe at Gunwalloe, also known as the Church of the Cove. That absolutely blew me away because it’s so tucked away in the most remote place.  I love architecture, but I love nature as well. One more place that blew me away was the Minack Theatre, which is near Porthcurno. It was built by a lady named Rowena Cade and her gardener, starting in the 1930s. She worked on it for about 50 years until she died in the 1980s. I should say that I don’t like heights, and climbing down the narrow, steep steps carrying a full pack scared me, but it still wowed me. It left me in awe how somebody could dedicate their whole life to something that is now such an iconic feature of the Cornish landscape.  Anyone performing there is performing with the backdrop of the sea behind them. Jo: Just to be clear, everyone, it’s on the coast at the edge of the coast, right? So you’re looking out to sea. Obviously it’s called the Coast Path, are you within sight of the sea the entire time? Zoe: I’d like to say yes, but no. I mean, mostly you are. Mostly, so wherever possible they try and keep the path as close to the sea as they can. But obviously for erosion reasons, that’s not always possible and safety reasons. Sometimes they have to reroute you inland. So yeah, there are moments – well, I say moments, miles – there will be miles through woodland and estates where it takes you into kind of very leafy green areas where you do not see the sea maybe for a whole day. But generally you do see the sea. And to be honest, if you don’t see the sea. Sometimes you are – well, generally you’re going to find things that are of great interest anyway. So whether it’s plants, whether it’s wildlife, buildings. One of those stretches, there was another church actually, within the first couple of days, a little church called Culbone and it’s in a valley. You just wander down into the dip through the woods. Lots of little holloways and brick built bridges from the Victorian times. But then you get down to this church and it’s a tiny church and I think it housed a leper colony many, many years ago. But it’s just very olde worlde. You would love it, Jo. The tombs and the gravestones that are covered in all the lichens and the mosses. It paints a very antiquated picture and it is beautiful. Just a nice energy there. Jo: For people who don’t really know England, there are some stereotypes, obviously. I guess the weather would be one thing, but also perhaps people think, ‘oh, it’s all quaint,’ so what are the more stormy aspects or the bits where it’s just like, okay, this is actually wild? Because some of that coast was famous for pirates and rocks. It’s not a gentle coastline really, is it? It can be quite violent with weather and waves. Zoe: Very far from it. Violent, brutal, challenging. Steep steps are built generally by volunteers, so very often they might not be of a standard height, so do be prepared for some steps to be even thigh height. So it is almost like climbing up them. That’s where walking poles come in handy. I found that having a pair of walking poles meant that I could lean on something. It takes the pressure off your knees. They say it takes up to 25% of the strain off your knees, but particularly useful when you’re going down steps like that. A lot of cliff paths

How does a childhood spent in the Himalayas of Nepal and India shape a life and a love for the mountains of Scotland? How can fiction help us understand the complex, painful history of India’s Partition? I discuss all this and more with the award-winning author, Merryn Glover.   Merryn’s nomadic “third culture kid” upbringing with missionary parents in Nepal and India The experience of attending an international boarding school in a North Indian hill station. The history of Indian Hill Stations like Mussoorie, from their origins in the British Raj to modern-day holiday destinations. Weaving the complex history of India’s Independence and Partition into her novel, A House Called Askival. The perspective of writing about India as both an insider to the international community and an outsider to the wider culture. How her childhood in the Himalayas influenced her love for her current home in the mountains of Scotland. Recommended travel books You can find Merryn at MerrynGlover.com Transcript of the interview Jo: Hello Travelers. I’m Jo Frances Penn, and today I’m here with Merryn Glover, who is an award-winning author of fiction, nature writing, plays, and short stories. Welcome, Merryn. Merryn: Hi there. Thank you for having me. Jo: It’s great to have you on. You were born in Kathmandu and brought up in Nepal, India, and Pakistan. You have an Australian passport and call Scotland home after living there for over 30 years. Tell us more about that. How did travel form such a backdrop to your life? Merryn: Essentially, because my parents were working in South Asia, that’s how I came to be born and brought up there. It very much was my life. Up until I was 18 and moved back to Australia to go to university, my father estimated that we’d probably moved 60 times. Some of those moves were backwards and forwards to the same locations or the same house, but it was very itinerant. In a lot of those locations, I didn’t necessarily have my own bedroom; it might be the curtained-off end of a living room, or I was often sharing with my big brother. It was very nomadic and it was just the life that we had. As a child, of course, you don’t think your life is unusual. It’s just the life that you have, and it’s only later on that you realize it is quite different to most people, particularly once I was back at university in Australia. Jo: What did your parents do that you traveled so much? Merryn: They were missionaries, in the old language, if you like, which tends to bring people out in hives. They were working in linguistics, literacy, and Bible translation, primarily amongst one of the language groups in Nepal, but ultimately in quite a lot of locations in India and Pakistan as well. They were working a lot with local churches, local Christians, and in a lot of training, enabling them in their own literacy and linguistic work. Jo: It’s incredible how much travel there is involved in that. When you remember being a kid, given you were moving around so much… I went to school in Malawi, in Africa for a while, and I don’t really remember it being different, as you said. How did you feel? Did you feel different? Did you go to random schools? How was that experience? Merryn: It was very varied. For the first seven years of my childhood, my parents spent a lot of time in a village in the hills of Nepal, and my mother homeschooled us when we were there. She was a qualified primary school teacher, so that obviously helped. She taught my brother and myself out on the veranda of the home that we lived in, in the village, for only a couple of hours every morning. After that, we were pretty free to roam and play. When we were in places like Kathmandu, there were often small, mission-run schools that we attended, and you had quite an international mix of kids at those schools. Then when I was nine, I followed my brother to a boarding school in North India, in the mountains, and I was there till I was 18. Interestingly, although boarding school means that you are away from your parents (and a lot of the time you are, and you’re dealing with homesickness and that sense of displacement), for some of the time, one or both of them were based where the school was, and we were day scholars. On the other hand, being there for nine years, it became a place of continuity and consistency. It became like an extended family and a community, which I’m still incredibly close to. I’m still really close to those friends and a lot of the staff. It is this most extraordinary and very international community of people that I got to know through that school. Jo: How interesting that you’re still close to them. And then you said you went back to Australia when you were 18. Did you just think everyone was so boring and provincial, or were you just wanting to be normal? Merryn: We were based in Melbourne when I went back to university, and Melbourne is a very metropolitan city. For my parents’ leave, every three or four years, we would go back to Australia for anything from a few months to about 18 months when my dad was completing his PhD in Canberra. Through the National University, there was accommodation for international students, and we were actually accommodated there. That was great for me because there were all these kids from Africa and India and so on running around in a big shared back garden. The primary school I went to in Canberra was in the area where all the embassies are, so again, it was relatively international by Australian standards. But arriving back for university at age 18, university is a good time to make a transition because you’ve got a slightly more diverse mix of people. You’ve got mature age students and a fair international mix because that’s what Melbourne is like. You have people with varying degrees of relationship to Australia because of their own family heritage. Some of them more recently moved, some of them their families have been in Australia for generations, but they still have a strong Greek identity or whatever else it might be. I was still probably one of the people with the weirdest accent. People thought I was American, which is partly because of the school I went to in India; there was a strong American influence in weird ways. It was an American-Indian accent mix; I don’t think any American would’ve owned it. Then some people thought I was Irish. But at university, partly because of the course I did – drama, dance, and English – being different was quite cool at that stage. People just thought it was fascinating and wanted to find out more about it. In contrast, friends I know who made that transition back to their parents’ country when they were 13 or 14 had a really hard time because that’s when you don’t want to be different. That’s when you really want to fit in and look and sound like everybody else. That is a really difficult time to change. So, for me, it was a good time to transition. Jo: I’m really interested in this because my mum brought us back from Malawi when I was going into senior school, so I was about 11 or 12. As you were saying, 13 is a difficult time. For people listening who are thinking, “I want to travel with kids,” or “I want to go live somewhere else”… Looking back, I’m grateful for my time away; it was all positive in my mind. Do you look back and think it was all amazing, or were there things that stick out in your mind as a terrible challenge? What can we do to encourage people to live somewhere else with children? Merryn: I look back and I’m very thankful for most of it. I think most of it was an extraordinary privilege. Boarding school is a very mixed experience wherever you are, and that’s something that I explore in the book we’ll be talking about later, as quite a bit of it is set in a fictionalized version of the boarding school I went to. Although there were lots of things I loved about the school and I still love that community of friends that I’m very close to, just being away from your own family for that length of time when you’re still growing up is never going to be ideal. But to encourage people, yes, it’s a wonderful thing to give children, if you can: the experience of other places and other cultures. It’s very different now. When I was a teenager in India — I was born in 1969 — there was no internet. The only way you could keep up with fashion or music was when friends went back to America or Europe for their holidays and came back with cassette tapes or new clothes. There was a much greater gulf between my experience and that of my peers back in Australia, which in many ways, I was quite thankful for. I wasn’t brought up around television, and my life was much more about the context and the culture I was in, and the extraordinary beautiful places I lived in. Whereas today, kids are not cut off wherever you take them. You’ve got the internet and access to their home culture, and they can speak easily to their grandparents or friends. In a sense, that’s almost a threat because it can prevent you from really embracing the place you go to if you’re too connected to home. I sometimes feel sorry for people that travel these days because there might be this pressure to share everything on social media. Maybe we don’t give ourselves the opportunity to really soak up the place we’re in, to absorb it, enjoy it, and relate to the people you’re meeting on the ground, rather than being so constantly connected to everybody back home. There are real pros and cons now. But I would definitely say to families that it’s a really rich experience. I’ve been interested in listening to this podcast in particular, where you’ve talked to people about the ‘third culture kid’ experience and people bringing up their own children in other cultures. There is now a huge amount of resource to help families navigate that in ways that

What makes a place sacred, and can you find spiritual transformation without traveling thousands of miles? Why do ordinary English villages and Scottish islands continue to draw seekers from around the world? Award-winning travel writer Oliver Smith talks about British pilgrimage sites from Lindisfarne to Iona, and Walsingham to Glastonbury, and how these ancient places still draw even secular pilgrims today. Oliver Smith is a multi award-winning travel writer and author of The Atlas of Abandoned Places, and On This Holy Island: A Modern Pilgrimage Across Britain. The double lives of pilgrimage places, and how ordinary locations can offer transcendent experiences Lindisfarne’s tidal causeway The tension between commercial tourism and genuine spiritual seeking at sacred sites Iona’s remote Scottish island setting and the challenging journey required to reach it Walsingham’s remarkable history from medieval powerhouse to modern multicultural pilgrimage destination Why Glastonbury might be Britain’s best pilgrimage The philosophy of traveling deeper not further, and finding extraordinary meaning in familiar places You can find Oli at OliverSmithTravel.com You can find more Pilgrimage Resources here, as well as my book, Pilgrimage: Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways. Transcript of the interview Jo: Hello Travelers. I’m Jo Frances Penn, and today I’m here with Oliver Smith. Hi Oli. Oli: Hello, how are you doing? Jo: Oh, it’s great to have you on the show. Just a little introduction. Oli is a multi award-winning travel writer and author of The Atlas of Abandoned Places, and On This Holy Island: A Modern Pilgrimage Across Britain, which we are talking about today. It’s a fantastic book. Now, Oli, I wanted to get straight into it. So you say in the book, although you’ve traveled all over the world, you say quote from the book, “What interested me now were those places that promised a kind of travel beyond what could be charted on an ink or pixel map.” So I wondered if you could start with that, because you’ve been to all these tick list travel places. What about those that are these soulful journeys? Oli: I guess what really interests me is that a lot of these places that feature in the book, they sort of live double lives, you know? If I pick one at random, or one near where you are in the country. If we think about Glastonbury for example, it’s fascinating because people go there with such huge expectation. For some people it’s a place that unlocks other worlds to them. The tor might be a portal to some world of the fairies or some world of Arthurian legend, or it might be something to do with Joseph of Arimathea. Jesus Christ walking in Somerset and that old legend, you know, so much is invested in it. Yet at the same time, Glastonbury is a place where if you go to the high street, there’s a Boots. There is a pub selling the usual repertoire of lagers and warm beers and Nobby’s Nuts behind the bar, you know, these places. I think all of them, to some degree in the book, they are ordinary, mundane places that people live in and people pass by every day. But then they offer, they promise a kind of an extra level, which is detectable to some people and isn’t to others. So it is that kind of duality. I think what really interested me when I was writing this book. Jo: Yeah, and I guess, well it’s almost a bigger question because when you look at your career as a travel writer and you mentioned their expectation, which I think is a fantastic word for so much of travel, you could pick any of the tick list places in the world and say, well, you know, that would be amazing. And then perhaps it’s not. I always think of Venice because I went to Venice one winter and it flooded and it stank and it was meant to be amazing, but it wasn’t. So I did really just wonder like — Why write a pilgrimage book when you have traveled so many wonderful places? Oli: I think one thing that can be said about all the places I’ve visited in this book is that there are places where you learn an awful lot about humanity and the human condition. People often gravitate to pilgrimage places at these kind of weightless moments of their lives when they’re sort of on a hinge. Perhaps they’ve lost someone who is dear to them. Perhaps they’ve been made redundant. Perhaps they’re looking for direction, they’re going through a rite of passage. But they are often people who are quick to tell you their story. They’re quick to open their heart. And I found myself getting in such deep and involving and fascinating conversations with people. I think my pilgrimage book is possibly a little bit different to a lot of the other ones that are out there. It’s not really about me. I’m more of a kind of witness perhaps. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that these places didn’t have some magic that I felt on some level. But I think it is primarily about looking at these 12 places, sort of different characters as well as being character places – they are rich in characters themselves. So yeah, I think you will have the best conversations if you go to wherever it might be. Walsingham on a pilgrimage day, or Stonehenge solstice or whatever it might be. Jo: Well one of the places that you went is Lindisfarne and I love that you slept in the rescue box. Now I’ve walked across the sands. It was one of the highlights of the St. Cuthbert’s Way. I had just a wonderful time. Tell us about the crossing to Lindisfarne Oli: I think what makes Lindisfarne really interesting is its geography. That tidal element to Lindisfarne is something that’s not entirely unique, because you also get it at St. Michael’s Mount. You also get it at a couple of Holy Islands in the Severn Estuary, I think as well. But on that scale, the idea of taking a walk of three miles across a path that twice a day is completely submerged, is quite a wonderful thing. And I wrote in the book that I think that path has many lessons. The idea that you only have a finite amount of time. The idea that you need to make the best of that time, that’s something that’s instructive for life on a much bigger level. But I think probably what’s more interesting is the element of vulnerability there. You know, the idea that you are walking across the sea and the sea will be coming back for you very shortly, and you run the risk every time you step onto that path. And it’s fascinating how there’s this sort of perpetual drumbeat through the summer of stories of people getting stuck on the causeway. It can be someone who often has got some quite flashy car and they think they can go straight through it. And then they go in the drink sort of halfway across. It’s also quite often people who are from countries where there aren’t tides. So people from central Europe, even the Mediterranean, you know, people sort of drive halfway across the causeway and they think it’s a car parking space, and they go for a little wander and they come back and the sea’s risen again. And suddenly their car is steering wheel deep in water. But there’s so much biblical symbology in that, you know, the idea of the floods, the idea of the seas parting for Moses. I think all of that kind of echoes very slightly around the Lindisfarne Causeway, both the tarmac road and the Pilgrims Way. I think all those things are important. I mean, I guess the other thing to say is the start of it all, Saint Aidan chose Lindisfarne because of this tidal rhythm. Because there’s these hours where the island is closed off from the world and the monks there would be in their solitude. They would be praying. And then there are those hours where the door opens in a way and they can go out into the world. They can spread the word. So it’s not an accident that the monastery is situated there. I think the one thing that is absolutely extraordinary about Lindisfarne that just doesn’t get spoken about enough is that almost every weekend or every other weekend in summer. Maybe that’s a bit too much. Maybe every other weekend or once a month, something like that, a car will go under in the causeway and these people will be in the car. The water will be going up, they’ll be calling the RNLI, they’ll probably be in a panic. RNLI will turn up in their lifeboat and then they’ll fish them out and they’ll go back to the sea houses and their car will be absolutely kaput. And there’s even a cottage industry. There’s a little garage by the causeway that seems to – I mean, it seemed to me that their business was essentially going out there, picking up the car and dragging it back. But in living memory, there’s no record of anyone ever having drowned. You see how fast that water moves and you see how dangerous it can be. And you can see how clueless people are. And there were a few people who did sort of weigh it over in their minds and say to me, well, there is, that is almost miraculous. The fact that nobody has ever come a cropper there in living memory, or even, I think even longer than that. I think there was sort of a muttering of something happened a hundred years ago. But it’s quite extraordinary how that’s the case. Jo: So I gotta come back to the box. Because we can picture this in our mind. So just explain what the walk looks like and what is the box and the poles and everything. Walker on the sands crossing away from Lindisfarne Photo by JFPenn Oli: Sure, sure. Sorry, I got carried away there. So you go across the causeway and say you’re going out at low tide, it sort of looks almost like a little bit of a desert. And then you’ve got the two routes, the Pilgrims Way, which is the walking path, which sort of goes in a straight line, and then the metal causeway, which is for cars. And on both of them you find these shelters. On the Pilgrims Way, it almost looks a bit like a tree house without a tree as it were

What is it like to work on ancient English churches, cathedrals and stone monuments? How does stone, a symbol of permanence, change over centuries? In this interview, I explore the craft of stonemasonry with church conservator Andrew Ziminski. Andrew Ziminski is a stonemason and church conservator with decades of experience working on some of the greatest cathedrals and churches in Britain. He’s also the author of The Stonemason: A History of Building Britain and Church Going: A Stone Mason’s Guide to the Churches of the British Isles. The ancient craft of stonemasonry and how the tools have remained unchanged for millennia How stone is damaged over time by settlement, weather, and even the metal used to build with The defining features of Gothic architecture, a movement focused on light and colour, not darkness Why the “Green Man” carvings in churches are Christian symbols of resurrection, not pagan figures How ancient churches can feel imbued with the atmosphere of centuries of human experience You can find Andrew at MinervaConservation.com. You can find my articles and photos of Gothic Cathedrals here. Transcript of the interview Jo: Hello Travelers. I’m Jo Frances Penn, and today I’m here with Andrew Ziminski. Hi Andy. Andy: Hello, Jo. Jo: Yes, absolutely. So just a little introduction. Andrew is a stonemason and church conservator with decades of experience working on some of the greatest cathedrals and churches in Britain. He’s also the author of The Stonemason: A History of Building Britain and Church Going: A Stone Mason’s Guide to the Churches of the British Isles. I’m a fan and I have the books right here if you are watching the video. I love them. So thank you so much for coming on today, Andy, I want to get straight into it because — Part of why I love churches and cathedrals is this sense of timelessness, of being small against the backdrop of history. How does it feel for you when you are working on these ancient buildings, doing this ancient craft? Andy: Well, in theory, I should be getting bored of it, I mean, I’ve been doing it so long, but anything but. My interest seems to grow with every project that we work on. We pretty much only work on ancient churches, medieval bridges, and the odd castle every now and again. There’s always something new to discover, be it a particularly local school of carvers or a type of medieval graffiti that I see carved into the piers of a particular church. There are so many regional variations in the British Isles, in terms of architecture and materials and the approach of the people who built these places, that I’m always sniffing them out. And as I understand more, it makes me want to understand even more, if that doesn’t sound too crazy. I think the day I’ll stop nosing around these places will be my last one on the planet. Jo: Well hopefully not falling off some spire. Didn’t you work on Salisbury Spire? Andy: Yeah, I started my training at Salisbury. I went to a local stonemasonry college because our part of England, the Southwest, is renowned for its building stones. There used to be a very excellent stonemasonry college at Weymouth on the coast in Dorset. From there I went up to the top of the tower, not the spire, but the tower, which is the square section that supports the octagonal base of the spire  which is 404 feet tall and the tallest medieval structure in Europe that’s still in its original condition. It’s pretty amazing. Jo: It is. Salisbury is amazing. And you mentioned ancient churches, so some people listening might be in places where they don’t have such ancient architecture as we have. What timeframe are you talking about when you say ancient churches? Andy: The oldest church I’ve worked on is in Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire, again in the Southwest. That was built around the year 1000, and anything from then onwards really. I tend to switch off with Victorian churches because I’m not really that interested in them. Victorian churches in the UK are generally Victorian interpretations of earlier medieval forms, and I think I might as well just study the medieval form and not the Victorian fakes. Even though their craftwork is excellent. Very often in the churches that we work on, we’re very close to the city of Bath, as you know, it is absolutely groaning with Roman ruins. It’s not unusual to see Roman material that the Anglo-Saxons reused in their walls or as part of their altars. I’ve done lots of work in the Roman baths in Bath, so I’d say the earliest structure I’ve worked on is the West Kennet Long Barrow, which was built about 3000 BC and has its own postcode. So I’ve worked on a building that’s 5000 years old, and that was quite incredible. Jo: It is incredible. And just again, coming back to this ancient craft, because the stonemasonry is also ancient. Obviously the people who built these things were stonemasons. How did you decide to get into this, because most people don’t go into stonemasonry? It’s not a growing profession. It’s so fascinating that you chose this direction. Andy: Well, a number of factors came into play. My father came here as a refugee during the war. The only options for him as a job were going down the coal mine or working as a stonemason in a granite quarry. We used to go to Scotland and I liked the permanency of the things he made. He was Polish and he’d say, “Son, this will last for a million years,” and they probably will, because they’re built of granite. So I quite liked the permanency of that from a young age. And I’ve always had a deep interest in history. I thought, how can I draw together the worlds of craft and history? Going down the path I knew a little about from my father seemed like a good way. And 35 – 40 years on, I haven’t looked back. Jo: I do find it fascinating. I went and did a weekend of stone carving and so I did actually use some of the tools and boy, my body hurt! What about the physicality of what you do? This is hard material. Is it very physical or is a lot of what you do now with chemicals or how does the job work? Andy: I’m a conservator first and foremost, and what that means is that my aim is to keep as much of the original as possible. It’s like dentistry, I guess. If there’s a cavity, and the stone around the cavity or the rot is okay, I will fill it using a lime mortar, which is a very ancient technique that the Romans used. You can’t lift a quarter-of-a-ton-sized piece of stone, you’ve got to use kit. Many people are surprised when I’m on site and my colleagues, half of them are women. Very often I find that women make better stonemasons than some of my more gung-ho male colleagues who just want to bust their backs and destroy their bodies by lifting things they shouldn’t lift. The tools that we use are unchanged since Roman times or even ancient Egyptian times. The head of my dummy is made of nylon, but the ancient Egyptians used mallets made of palm trees turned on a lathe. So, the materials might be different, but the tools, the form of the tools, the approach, and the mindset are exactly the same. The way I would approach cutting a block of stone is not in any way different to someone who was cutting a limestone block for the Great Pyramid, or in the Roman Baths in Bath, or in the Colosseum, or at Notre Dame. This is a sort of brilliant handing on of the baton over the generations that goes unnoticed, and I like that about craft skills. Jo: Are young people coming into it? Is there another generation? Because I feel like that kind of craftsmanship – Are we losing this kind of craftsmanship or is it still here? Andy: No, there’s stonemasons in every hedge round here because it’s a stony area. The local stonemasonry college in Bath is really good. There’s no shortage of youngsters coming through at all. It’s different in other parts of the country where there isn’t such a strong tradition. But certainly around here in Southwest Britain, Southern Britain, and in London, there are lots of stonemasons. But there are other crafts that are suffering from a demise in interest, mainly because people don’t know that these jobs exist, and I think that’s a big problem. I spent all last week at the Chalke Valley History Festival, educating young people that it’s possible to earn a living that’s good for your soul, good for your body, and good for society by undertaking a traditional craft, be that a stonemason, an oak carpenter, or a stone slater. All church roofs need stone slaters, and that’s an area where there is a real shortage. If you want to become a millionaire in years, become a church stone slater. Jo: But then, you love the stone now, I guess. Andy: Yeah, I mean, ’cause our business is tiny, there’s just eight of us and we just go from job to job. We’ve had to become generalists so we can carve pretty much anything. We could rebuild any vault we could repair a hole in a wall and plaster it up. We’ve got a broad range of skills, but we’re not specific and in the craft of ow masonry. There are lots of different areas you can be, you can focus on being a letter cutter, for example, and just do headstones or memorials or you could be a sculptor, of some sort. Or you could be what they call a Banker Mason. You’re just in a workshop making components to be fitted into a church or a fixer mason. But we sort of have to do all of that. So we’re a bit slower than the people who choose to specifically focus on one of those types of tasks. Jo: I’m also interested because when I was attracted to this whole area and Gothic cathedrals, it was this sense of things lasting. We think of stone as something that doesn’t change, and it’s used as a metaphor for unchanging and unyielding, and yet your very job is fixing stone. What changes and damages stone over time? What are you fixing? Andy: Settlement within th

What does it mean to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time? How can travel shape our sense of self, and how do we find our way home when faced with unexpected grief abroad? In this episode, I talk with author Becky Doughty about her traveling childhood as a missionary kid, a life-changing trip to Tuscany that resonated with grief, and how traveling alone helped her become more resilient. Becky writes heartfelt and wholesome, contemporary commercial fiction and Christian fiction, including the Autumn Lake and the Tuscan Romance series. Growing up as a missionary kid in West Papua Being adopted, from “nowhere, anywhere, and everywhere.” How a dream trip to Tuscany turned into a journey of grief after the sudden death of her father. Turning a traumatic travel memory into a heartfelt romance Overcoming the fear of traveling and why embracing the moment is more important than worrying about what might go wrong. Becky’s solo backpacking trip to run the Dublin marathon and how it stripped away everything except her own inner strength. You can find Becky at BeckyDoughty.com Jo: Hello Travelers. I’m Jo Frances Penn, and today I’m here with Becky Doughty. Hi Becky. Becky: Hi Jo. How are you? Jo: I’m good. It’s great to have you on the show. For a little introduction, Becky writes heartfelt and wholesome, contemporary commercial fiction and Christian fiction, including the Autumn Lake and the Tuscan Romance series. We have lots to talk about today, but as a starter — How did travel play a part in your childhood? Becky: Well, I always say I’m a missionary kid in recovery because travel made me fearless. Being a kid that traveled all around the world, I never really had a place that was home base. Even though we didn’t live in a lot of different countries, we did primarily live in Indonesia. My dad was an airplane mechanic and pilot, and he oversaw most of the hangar operations at our base camp in what is now West Papua. For me, travel was just a way of life. We traveled back and forth to the States, which was home, and I traveled to school. I was a boarding student in high school and we traveled all on our own, with no parents. It was two days of travel, and we had to get to the right place during our stopover. Travel was just a part of life and it made me a fearless, “I’m just going to do whatever I want to do” kind of person. But the flip side is that it also leaves you feeling a little bit, not unrooted, but wondering where to put your roots down. Especially since we were always told that America was home, in particular where our grandparents lived. But it never felt like home because we were always only visiting. That’s a big part of why I write stories about people finding their place. I’ve always written stories and escaped into other people’s lives for that reason. Jo: It’s fascinating that you were told where home is whilst living elsewhere. Because you are living there, in West Papua or PNG as it was, with a very different culture, climate, and religions. I worked in mining for a while, so I know that sort of ‘Wild West’ idea of what was going on in PNG, and of course, there were wars and everything. So that’s very different. To be told, “Your home is in America, you belong in America,” must have been very strange. What age were you? What were your formative years? Becky: My parents went to the mission field with three kids under three. My older brother and I are adopted, not biologically related, and then the next two siblings came along naturally. My sister and I are only eight months apart. So when they went to the mission field, my brother was around three, I was one, and my sister was younger. I lived away until my senior year of high school. We came back periodically. At the beginning, it was every four years. Then, as they realized how isolating that was for some people, it changed. I think now furloughs are closer to every two years. Jo: And of course, no internet. International phoning was really hard. A very different world. Becky: Completely different. We had to travel to phone home to our grandparents. Once a year, we would travel into the capital, Jayapura, and make a very short call at the embassy. Our main mode of communication was cassette tapes. We would record and send them, and it could take four to six weeks, or even two months, to arrive. Our grandparents would record these long cassette tapes with Grandpa reading stories and singing songs, saying things like, “Here’s a song that reminds me of Becky.” We had these wonderful treasures because communication was so difficult. Jo: Do you still have them? Becky: I don’t have them anymore. My mom has a few things from back then, but those are some of the memories that we just lost. One of the issues we had was that we often had to pack up and leave everything behind. You get used to taking only what you can put in your suitcase, and with the idea that we were just going ‘home’ to see the grandparents, a lot of stuff that we should have kept wasn’t. My mom has kept all of her prayer letters and has compiled them in a book, so that’s cool because we get to see the journey through those letters. When we came back to Indonesia, we would often pack a crate and have it shipped by sea. By the time it arrived, it would often have holes cut in the side and things taken from it. So even when we sent stuff ahead, things were often missing. We never knew quite what we would get at the other end. We started shipping things in 55-gallon drums that you could seal, which were harder to break into, but you can cut the lock on one of those. It was always a free-for-all; you never knew what was going to meet you. Jo: A far cry from Amazon next-day delivery! I want to come back to something you mentioned. You were adopted, and I was reading on your website that you say — “I am adopted. It’s pretty cool. I come from nowhere, anywhere and everywhere.” This fascinated me, because I don’t think I’ve ever read a description of being adopted in terms of sense of place before. That really caught my eye. Why did you choose those words to describe it that way? Becky: That’s a really good question. I’ve had to really think about this and how to answer it succinctly. One of the things I struggled with growing up was a sense of belonging. It’s not because my parents were problematic; they were wonderful parents. I am a success story as far as winning the lottery with parents through adoption. But I still always felt that there’s something of me out there somewhere. If I could find my people and my place, I would know where I came from, and that would give me a better sense of where I’m going. Because I have such a deep connection to the people in my life—my adopted family, my husband of 37 years, our grown kids and five grandkids—I have a very stable life in terms of people. But because of the travel and never really having that sense of place, I always thought it would be cool to find out that I’m from some random place and get there and find a bunch of people who look and act just like me. According to my birth records, I have both Japanese and Spanish in me, which you’d never know. But wouldn’t it be cool to go to Japan and find where I started from? So a sense of place is almost more important to me because I already have a sense of people. Ironically, there’s a funny twist. We’ve been living in California for most of our marriage, but we moved to Indiana, which is in the middle of the Midwest. We ended up living on the exact same street, just four houses up from where my husband grew up. For my husband, Kevin, coming back to his street has been like coming home. There’s a little bit of me that gets to live vicariously through him regarding where home is. But I think I’ll always be searching for where home is. I am a believer, and that is actually one of the few things that has kept me grounded. The reason I came back for my senior year of high school was because I got kicked out of school. I really struggled with authority, especially not being able to question it. It was a very conservative boarding school for missionary kids. If you questioned anything, you were the troublemaker. That really played a lot into my feelings of “Why am I here? I don’t fit here.” I was told, “This is how Christians act and behave,” but that’s not the way I believe. That set me as an adult in this direction of searching. I walked away from my faith for a long time in my thirties, and then at the end of that journey, I realized that’s the only thing I can really depend on because people are just people. This goes back to that idea of place. The older I get, the more I feel like maybe I’ll just keep traveling while I’m here and wait for that feeling of home for Heaven. Jo: That’s really interesting. I have heard many people of faith say they will go home to God or Jesus. Let’s stick with different places because you have your Tuscan romance, ‘All The Way to Heaven’. Everyone loves Tuscany. Tell us about the trip that inspired the book. Since a sense of place is so important to you, what places from that time still stick in your mind? Becky: A friend of mine and I had “Go to Tuscany” on our bucket list because we were massive fans of ‘Under the Tuscan Sun’. Ironically, it was the movie that we loved so much. I always read books first, but this was one that I didn’t, because I didn’t know it was based on a book until after watching the movie. My husband, bless his heart, hates flying, but I grew up on little tiny puddle jumpers and never thought of flying as something to be afraid of. So, he stayed home with the kids. We wanted to go to a few places that were a little less chaotic, especially since we were going in October, during the harvest and tourist season. We started our trip in Lucca, which is a mediev

Have you ever wondered what it’s really like to live and work on a cruise ship? Is it all glamour and exotic locations, or is there a hidden, more challenging side to life at sea? How do you cope with being away from family for months at a time, and what strange events unfold on these floating cities? In this episode, former cruise ship entertainer Wendy Nugent talks about her journeys and how they inspired her mystery novels. If you like episodes about the sea/books, check out episode 1 where I talk about my tallship journey from Fiji to Vanuatu, Sailing around the world with Tom Dymond; Tallship sailing in Galveston, Texas, and Sailing the Pacific with Nadine Slavinski. Wendy spent a decade as part of an award-winning magic act performing on cruise ships all over the world. She traveled from Alaska to Venezuela, Bermuda to Tahiti, and many exotic ports of call in between. Now, Wendy uses her insider knowledge of cruise ship life to write entertaining cozy mystery books set on cruise ships. Wendy’s journey from a theater graduate to performing on ships around the globe The highs and lows of life at sea, from incredible shore excursions to the challenges of being away from family The strict social hierarchy and unique culture on board, with crew members from many different nations The weird and wonderful things that happen on cruises—from ship fires to rescuing refugees—that inspire her mystery novels Practical tips for potential cruisers on choosing the right itinerary and ship size for their travel style How to make a tiny, temporary cabin feel like home, especially when your cabin mate is a performing parrot Recommended books You can find Wendy at WendyNeugent.com. Transcript of the interview Jo: Hello, travelers. I’m Jo Frances Penn, and today I’m here with Wendy Neugent. Hi Wendy. Wendy: Hi Jo. It’s so nice to get to talk to you. Jo: I’m excited about this. Just a little introduction. Wendy spent a decade as part of an award-winning magic act performing on cruise ships all over the world. She traveled from Alaska to Venezuela, Bermuda to Tahiti, and many exotic ports of call in between. Now, Wendy uses her insider knowledge of cruise ship life to write entertaining cozy mystery books set on cruise ships. I think you’ve got one there as well, haven’t you? One of your books. Wendy: Yeah, Murder Takes a Bow. Jo: Fantastic. So this is going to be really interesting. To start off, just tell us — How did you come to work on cruise ships in the first place? Why did you want to be part of that kind of life? Wendy: I have a degree in theater, so I had a background in entertaining, but I was actually working at Colonial Williamsburg as a costumed tour guide straight out of college. I had moved there from upstate New York and was excited to be someplace a little warmer. I met someone who was working on cruise ships and they ended up hooking me up with a job working as a youth counselor. So that was my first contract. It was just three and four-day cruises, really quick. It was on the former Disney ship, the Premier Cruises. I ended up working my way up to being part of a review show where I had a section where I would hold up big dance cards and dance around on stage and do silly things like that. 9 And then over the years, I worked into having this magic act with my then-partner and traveled the world. It was a really fun way when I was young and in my twenties and early thirties to get paid pretty well to live on ships and travel the world. So I have no regrets about it. It was a great experience and I really enjoyed it. I don’t know if I’d want to do it now at this point in my life, but when you’re young and you don’t have any commitments, it’s a really fun way to get to see the world. Jo: And why did you stop working on cruise ships? Wendy: I stopped because I was five months pregnant! Jo: I was going to say, there must be a family in there! Wendy: Yeah. So that last contract was pretty rough because I was dealing with morning sickness and performing and getting bigger and everything. My last contract ended when I was five months pregnant. And I was definitely done at that point. You get burnt out from all of the travel and constantly being on the go and in a different port every day. It’s a lot. So 10 years was good and I really enjoyed it, but I was definitely ready to leave when I was done. Jo: Yeah. Well, but it’s interesting because of course you’ve written this series of books set on cruise ships, so there’s definitely this thing in you that is still kind of holding onto that life. So let’s first start with — What are some of the most amazing things, the highlights that you can remember, that you were like, yes, this is the best job in the world? Wendy: Oh, definitely. I mean, I hiked to a waterfall in Venezuela with all of the entertainers on board. It was epic. You got done with this out in the middle of Venezuela and you’re thinking, what life am I living? This is incredible. And when I was in Tahiti, Jean-Michel Cousteau was there and he was leading tours in Fatu Hiva, which is one of the Marquesan islands. I mean, you’re thinking, how is this even possible that I’m getting to do this? Tahiti was definitely a high point and I was incredibly lucky because I was on the Paul Gauguin, which is a very small cruise line. And a beautiful ship. Very, very high-end cruises, where they had a lot of educational talks and things like that going on. I lucked out because I was only there for a few weeks, but over that time, the run that I was on, they were going up and they did a special run up into the Marquesas, which are really remote islands that you wouldn’t get to. It would be very difficult if you weren’t on a ship to be able to go to all of these different islands and get to see these places. So Hiva Oa and Fatu Hiva and all these places that are amazing. And because you’re part of a ship, they’re bringing on dance groups and cultural events and things like that. So it was an incredible experience. Jo: Those things just sound amazing. You did mention a small cruise boat and I’m really interested in this. I have never been on a cruise. I have been on a tall ship, as a passenger on a tour ship, but not like a cruise cruise. When you say a small cruise ship, what sizes are we talking here? Wendy: I think that this had about 300 passengers. I’ve been on cruise ships that had 1,500 passengers up to 3,000. So, when we would do a performance, we might have 1,200 or 1,500 people in the audience at a time. So there are some pretty large ships. The smaller ships are pretty unique and there are not very many of them, and they tend to be more expensive because they’re going into very unique ports and things like that. But when I got to do those, they were always my favorite for sure. Jo: And then again, you said the high points there sounded like they were on the shore leave instead of on the boat. So were there any moments when you were out on the ships that you were like, this is amazing? Or did you just never have the time to kind of stand at the bow doing the Titanic thing? Wendy: No, I definitely did that. Because I was on ships during that time period when Titanic was a thing. It was really fun and — I think the most fun part of working on a cruise ship is that everybody’s there together. So I was really lucky because I was working as an entertainer, and when you’re doing that, you just do your shows. I didn’t have to do any crew duties. I was on the passenger manifest. So it’s a pretty good life compared to the crew. You have a decent cabin, you have your own private cabin, you’re not stacked in bunk beds like the crew might be. Because it’s a very, almost a military kind of background of the way that ships work. There’s very much a hierarchy. You have your crew members that live down in the below decks and they’re having to wear uniforms all the time. They’re very restricted in what they can do during the day, and they work a lot of hours. And then, above crew, you have staff members. The staff members are more the ones that are running the games and, when I was working as a youth counselor, I was on staff. So you have more privileges, but you’re still like a uniform-wearing person that lives in a crew area. And then when you’re an entertainer, and I guess the officers, you know, the officers rule everyone, passengers and crew. As an entertainer, there aren’t very many of you on board. Even if you have a cast, it will usually be a few people that are singers and dancers that perform. And then there’ll be a few entertainers like I was, where you have your own act and you’re traveling ship to ship to ship, doing your performance. And when you’re doing that, you generally are on as a passenger, you’re on that passenger manifest. So other than performing, I got to read all the time. I got to sit out on the deck in Alaska and watch the eagles fly by and watch the sea otters drift past the ship. So it was a pretty good gig for the time. But the best part of that is that you meet people from all over the world — — and you have friends. Because you’re away from your family, you’re away from all your friends and you’re only there maybe for two months or six months. So you bond really quickly because you don’t have anybody else and you’re there for Christmas and you’re there for your birthday. You get kind of relationships that you might not ever have in day-to-day life working just a normal job. So that’s the most fun. Like my favorite memories are sitting out on the back deck and you’re getting to hang out with the comedians and all of these really funny, entertaining people that are super interesting. And generally the people that work on cruise ships tend to be kind of unique because it’s not a normal thing to do, so they tend to be really

How can a physical journey trigger profound inner change? What draws a non-religious person to undertake a Catholic pilgrimage? What happens when you encounter both the best and worst versions of yourself on the same path? Bradley Chermside, international best-selling author, entertainer, and host of the El Camino de Santiago Podcast shares his transformative journey. You can also find my memoir, Pilgrimage, and lots of pilgrimage and Camino resources here. Bradley Chermside is an international bestselling author, copywriter and multi-award winning singer and entertainer. He’s the host of the El Camino de Santiago Podcast, and today we’re talking about his book,The Only Way is West: A Once in a Lifetime , 500 Mile Adventure Walking Spain’s Camino de Santiago. Life before the Camino and why walk a pilgrimage if you’re not a Christian Spiritual and personal influences Highlights of the Camino, and the challenges along the way Meeting people, walking together and alone Balancing life after Camino — and why Bradley continues to walk the routes Recommended books You can find Brad at BradleyChermside.com and also on the El Camino de Santiago Pilgrims Podcast. I was also on Bradley’s Camino podcast talking about my own Camino experience here.  Transcript of the interview Jo: Hello, travelers. I’m Jo Frances Penn, and today I’m here with Bradley Chermside. Hi, Brad. Brad: Hello. Jo: Hello. So just a little introduction. Brad is an international best-selling author, copywriter, and multi-award-winning singer and entertainer. He’s the host of the El Camino de Santiago podcast, and today we’re talking about his book, The Only Way Is West: A Once-in-a-Lifetime 500-Mile Adventure Walking Spain’s Camino de Santiago. And on the video, Brad’s just showing the book there, it is fantastic. So we’re going to jump straight into it. I wanted to pick out this quote from the book. You talk about, “A meaningless, empty existence, exacerbated by the Monday morning blues.” Why was pilgrimage the answer? Take us back. What was life going on in your life at that time and why was pilgrimage your answer? Brad: Well, exactly what you just described there was a meaningless existence. I knew it had a limit on it. I knew it wasn’t a sustainable way of living. Jo: What was it though? We’re dying to know. Brad: I don’t really need to go into details! but it was just doing what you do as a youngster. You’re experimenting with different things, and it wasn’t really fulfilling in any way. And the work I was doing at the time wasn’t fulfilling either, even though I was making a good living out of it. And I thought, you know what? There’s got to be a drastic change here, and I’d read two books about the Camino during the time. The Camino by Shirley MacLaine, which is mad. I was like, “Whoa, I wouldn’t mind some of these crazy things happening.” These really vivid lucid dreams and hallucinations in her dreams and stuff. And also The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho, which is one of my favorites. Jo: And I read that one. That was my one. Very different books. Brad: Oh yeah, definitely. And again, a bit woo-woo, as they say. But I’m into woo-woo so it was definitely preaching to the converted. And I thought, you know what? And anyway, I bumped into a friend of mine in London, just by chance, a serendipitous event, and they said to me, “You should… I’ve been trying to get in contact with you. You should walk the Camino.” And this person was never ever present on social media, literally disappeared off the earth. And I just bumped into them on the wrong train on the London Underground. So I got onto the wrong train on the London Underground and I was like, “This is a sign.” I decided to go and walk it, and the massive change was exactly what I needed. It was a chance to look back at the life I was leaving and realize that it was going down a dead end and that changes were needed. Jo: So what year was this? Brad: This would have been 2015. Jo: Oh, okay. So as we speak now, like a decade ago. And so, how old were you approximately at the time? Brad: 2015, so going back I would’ve been 36. Jo: That’s really interesting. So I do think that in that mid-30s, I also at that point, I was working as a business consultant, and I was like, “What is the point?” And I wasn’t living quite the high life that it sounds like you were, but it was also a similar, “What am I doing with my life?” I think there’s probably something that starts to hit at mid-30s when that happens. Brad: Yeah, I think it comes at different points for everybody, doesn’t it? But you just know, like, you’ve got to make a big decision. And it was very, very necessary. Jo: So you read those two books, but you… as far as I know, you’re not a Christian, right? Brad: No, no, I’m not, no. Jo: So how did you go from… I mean, obviously you read those two books, but something was drawing you, and you said you’re a fan of woo-woo. What in your background prompted you to want to go on what is essentially a Catholic pilgrimage to change your life? Like, you could’ve gone to India and done meditation or something, but you chose this. Brad: Yeah, it’s a very good question because I have done stuff like that. I’ve spent time with Hare Krishnas. I’ve chanted with them and stayed in a Buddhist silent retreat, which for me is a really big challenge. The silent retreat was in Hertfordshire in the UK. And I’ve always been spiritually curious. I’ve also worked in a church, worked for a church. You know, this was part of my journey, like, where is my spiritual destination? Where’s my spiritual home? Still haven’t found it, if I’m being honest. But that is all part of the journey so I’m always open to religion, always open to spirituality. And I just knew that this was a place where it was a kind of a bastion of European spirituality. And my brother is super spiritual. He’s older than me but he’s super spiritual and he’s been an influence definitely. He’s a Christian, actually. Jo: Okay, so there was something there. Brad: Yeah, yeah. And he was shoving Bibles under my nose as a kid, and I’d pick it up. It never really resonated with me personally. But always aware, always open, always, and I knew this was just a place where I’d probably meet like-minded seekers. Jo: Yeah, and I use that word too, seekers. Brad: Mm-hmm. Jo: And I think that’s, I guess, what I’d say to people listening, if you’re not religious, you can still be a seeker, like a spiritual person. Which Camino route did you walk at that time and what were the most beautiful parts, the highlights? Brad: The Camino Francés, which is the kind of official starting point, is in France at the foot of the Pyrenees, Saint-Jean Pied de Port. And you cross the Pyrenees, then you walk all the way to Santiago de Compostela across the whole of northern Spain. I went on to the Atlantic and finished in Finisterra, which is the supposed end of the Earth until the Americas were discovered. So I love that idea. And that’s where the Camino Francés trail, the official trail, goes from. You can jump on and off any point along that trail. There’s not like a gate that opens up and closes until you get to the end. You could just get on there and walk it. And the first day is stunning. It’s a really tough walk. It’s up and over the Pyrenees. There’s a stop along the way in a place called Orisson. That’s a really good stopping point. I went all the way over and all the way down on the first day, 27 kilometers, but the views are incredible. It’s like you’ve walked through the gates of heaven and you’re up in the clouds and you’re above the clouds and you see the serrated mountainous skyline and the jagged peaks poking through the clouds. It’s unfathomable to the mind. You never think that such natural beauty exists. And also, another beautiful part would be Santiago to Finisterra. That’s an official start of another Camino, which is the Camino Fisterra. You get another Compostela when you get to Finisterra as well. And me and my wife did that again last year, March 2024. It’s four days walking, three days if you really want to give it some. But wow, I mean, that is something else. Forest all the way, pine forest, walking alongside… I just got goosebumps saying it. And the energy, the energy, oh my Lord — There’s something in the air there between Santiago and Finisterra that I guess you could call it a higher vibration, a supreme energy, a purer energy — I don’t know what it is, but you go there and your whole soul just breathes a sigh of relief when it gets there. Jo: Is it a lot less busy? Because one of the issues, I guess depending on the time of year, but the main Camino routes and the Francés particularly can be very, very busy, and that last 100 kilometers is particularly busy because that is the one that a lot of people only do the last 100 kilometers. So is that separate one on to Finisterra, is it a lot emptier? Brad: I guess it depends on what time of the year you do it, but it definitely has less people than the main Camino routes. I don’t know the official statistics. I know the two most common routes are the Camino Portuguese, which would be in second place, and the Camino Francés. So where the Camino Finisterra ranks on that, I don’t know, but there’s definitely less people. It’s a harder walk, so that’s why there’s less people as well. It’s not an easy walk by any stretch of the imagination. Jo: Is it more mountains again? Brad: There’s a lot of ups and downs. There’s a Spanish guy I met along the way and he described it as, “Bing bong, bing bong, bing bong.” But it’s not just the fact that there’s lots of ups and downs, but it’s like

What does home mean when you are always moving on? What does belonging mean when your address changes every few years? And how do we reconcile our evolving identities with the places we’ve left behind? Catriona Turner talks about her travels from Scotland to France, to Congo and Uganda, and back home again over 14 years, and how she has redefined what she calls home. For more episodes on home, check out my solo episode on Sanctuary, Retreat, Belonging: The Importance of Home in Difficult Times; and for more on Third Culture Kids, check out the interview on Djibouti with Rachel Pieh Jones. You can also find more about my thoughts on home in my memoir, Pilgrimage: Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways. Catriona Turner is the Scottish author of Nest, A Memoir of Home on the Move. Life in Kampala, Uganda – discovering an unexpectedly cosmopolitan city with thriving coffee and food scenes Experiencing the Republic of Congo – navigating life in Pointe-Noire, a Francophone oil city with strong French influences The challenges of living in transition – the struggle between temporary mindset and embracing the present moment Unpacking the loaded terms ‘expat’ and ‘immigrant’ — privilege, cultural integration, and identity The evolution of “home” – from a fixed geographical location to a multidimensional concept that travels with you How children experience third culture living Repatriation challenges – seeing your own culture through new eyes after years abroad Unexpected appreciations – discovering the beauty of Scotland through foreigners’ perspectives Book recommendations for understanding global living, going home, and repatriation You can find Catriona at CatrionaTurner.com and her book, Nest, on Amazon. Transcript of the interview: Jo: Hello Travelers. I am Jo Frances (J.F.) Penn, and today I’m here with Catriona Turner. Hi Katrina.Catriona: Hi. So happy to be here.Jo: It’s great to have you on the show. Catriona is the Scottish author of Nest, A Memoir of Home on the Move, which we are talking about today. Tell us a bit about why you left Scotland 14 plus years ago and some of the places that you’ve lived. Catriona: Yeah. Coming up for 16 years ago that we left in 2009 and that was because of my husband’s job. So we had met a couple years before and it was always kinda on the cards that his company might ask him to be globally mobile. So when the opportunity came up, we did, I had been teaching for 10 years and I was happy to kind of take a career break to move to Southern France for three years, because who wouldn’t? Jo: Yeah, for sure. Catriona: — on the company Dollar and off we went. We got married about the same time and 14 years later, we came back having, by then moved to Uganda and back to France and the Republic of Congo and Denmark, and then back to France. One more time in Paris before we came back, yeah. Coming up for two years ago now we’re back in Aberdeen, in the northeast of Scotland, which was where we left from. Jo: And with two kids. Catriona: Two kids that joined us along the way. Jo: Well, it’s interesting and I wanted to talk to you ’cause although we lived in different places, I left England in 2000 and returned in 2011. So I was away 11 years and no children so I understand the sort of being away longer, but let’s go back. ’cause I mean, depending on who’s listening, but the South of France, I mean obviously there’s the language, but I feel like — Congo and Uganda were probably a much bigger culture shock. So tell us about those countries. I mean, most people never have visited. What did you love about them and what was amazing? Catriona: Well, I mean, they’re two really different countries, so, Uganda in particular. So that was my first experience of like being out of Europe, living somewhere completely different. But really the quality of life there was incredible. In the end, we were only there for a year, or I was only there for a year, my husband was there a bit longer, so we didn’t fully take advantage of it but Kampala is this incredibly cosmopolitan city actually. It’s relatively very developed, great coffee scene, great food scene. There are people living there from all over the world because it’s like a real hub for the region. Kampala, well the time we were there, I mean, still relatively stable country compared to some of the countries around about it. So a lot of NGOs have a big base in that part of the world. , the World Bank, there’s like big organizations and big companies that are based in Kampala, so it’s a really lively city, relatively developed. We ate so well. I got really hooked on Ugandan coffee. I know you love coffee. Like East African people know East African coffee. They know Kenyan. They maybe know Rwandan/Ethiopian coffee of course. But Ugandan coffee is what I’m always searching for. Now it’s not exported as much. But yeah, I stopped breastfeeding at that time and got back into coffee in a big way. And the travel, of living, in Uganda, we were in the city but having gone from somebody who thought that safari would be something I would do, once in a lifetime, you know, something you would do when you retire to then living somewhere, you could go and do it on a weekend. And we did it on several weekends. It was just a little mini break, well a big mini break ’cause it was five hours of driving across, Jo: but it’s easier than me visiting you in Aberdeen from down here in Bath. Catriona: Well, yeah. Oh, definitely, But it was a shorter drive than that. And yeah, we had amazing Safari weekends well, that, Jo: I mean, that can, sounds pretty, pretty idyllic in Uganda, but obviously the Congo is more known for civil war and, not being a safe, stable country. How was it living in the Congo? Catriona: We were living in the Republic of Congo. So not the DRC, not the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is where there’s serious problems. Republic of Congo or what people often call Congo-Brazzaville is much more stable, for good or ill, I won’t get into the politics of the country, but it’s stable. And not as interesting, I would say to live in as Uganda where you can have easy travel. The tourism in Congo not as developed. We had a good life there, like in many ways, and people, I think a lot of people imagine living somewhere like that as being very confined to sort of compound living and my husband previously had worked in Nigeria on rotation, and that had been his experience, just kind of getting driven in and out of a compound to go to work as opposed to in Congo where we lived in an apartment complex owned by the company, but the town was really quiet. We could walk around, we could go to the beach, we could walk to the shops and restaurants and very French feeling to me, and I would tell I had a lot of French friends living there, and yeah, there’s a few English speaking people living there, but because the country is so largely French speaking, you really have to be able to speak French to live and work there. So most of my friends are French, and I would say to them, oh, it feels so French here. And they would say, no, it’s not, it’s Africa. But relatively, the French influence is still very strong. So we had French supermarkets, french restaurants, French patisseries. Jo: It’s an ex-French colony, right? Catriona: Yes. Jo: And look, I mean — Colonialism is a difficult topic, but I always feel like people just assume that it’s always a British colony, whereas of course, Sub-Saharan Africa, there’s French, there’s Portuguese, there’s German influence down there as well, wasn’t there? Catriona: Yeah. Yeah. We went to Namibia Jo: Very German. Catriona: Yeah. Yeah. I think probably most people wouldn’t realize how how vast of an area is considered francophone. Africa is so many countries that are still, where the main language or the official language is French, where the currency is still linked to the Franc. Still kind of linked to French economics. And it’s the franc that is the currency across a lot of African countries still, which is fascinating. Jo: And so, I mean obviously you had young kids as well, so — What were the challenges of living in these countries at that time for you? Catriona: The challenges of living in countries like that? Like, I’m moving all the time. I think that’s more the challenge. You know, we were well looked after and we were living in stable places on the whole Uganda that I had some personal challenges because at the time there was, in 2014, there was a big anti-gay anti homosexuality bill that was going through parliament. There was an anti pornography law that was going through Parliament that caused a lot of problems with, it became known as the Miniskirt Law because women were being targeted for dressing in a certain way. And so, there was instability, at least in the values and the misaligned values, I guess is how I would describe it when I was living there. And I was only there for a year, so I didn’t really have to think too deeply about it because I knew in the back of my mind, well, we’ll be leaving. And so I don’t have to think too deeply about this. You know, I have a baby and a toddler and I’ll just get on with things. Yeah. But in Congo is much more, it just stable from that point of view. But, the challenges for me were more that — It’s that challenge of feeling like you don’t have to engage too much because it’s temporary, but then you’re never really living your life in the moment because you’re thinking, ‘oh, I can leave.’ My next place, my next move will be something more. You know, I’ll do it right next time. So, that was the turning point that came for me eventually, was to realize that that was how I was living, that being in transition all the time. I still had to find a sense of living my life in the moment

Why does Egypt continue to fascinate curious travelers? What hidden chambers might lie beneath the pyramids of Giza? How does the duality of Egyptian mythology influence thriller writing? Join thriller authors J.F. Penn and Luke Richardson for a conversation that weaves together archaeological intrigue, travel insights, and the creative process behind crafting compelling adventures in one of history’s most enigmatic settings. Luke Richardson is the bestselling author of the Eden Black Archaeological Thrillers and the International Detective Thriller Series. Why Egypt continues to capture the imagination: Ancient myths, tombs, and timeless sites Modern Cairo and Garbage City The Oasis of Siwa The Pyramids of Giza, and recent archaeological finds about what might be underneath Travel tips for modern Egypt Recommended books You can find Luke at LukeRichardsonAuthor.com and his books on Amazon. You can also find his trip notes and pictures at LukeRichardsonAuthor.com/egypt If you enjoy thrillers inspired by and set in Egypt, check out The Giza Protocol by Luke Richardson and Ark of Blood by J.F. Penn. Transcript of the interview Jo: Hello Travelers. I’m Jo Frances Penn, and today I’m here with Luke Richardson. Hi Luke. Luke: Hello. Jo: I’m so excited to talk to you. Just for the listeners, Luke is the bestselling author of the Eden Black Archaeological Thrillers and the International Detective Thriller Series, and today we are talking about Egypt, which inspires locations in several of our books, Luke’s thriller, The Giza Protocol, and also my Ark of Blood. We share an enthusiasm for action adventure thrillers. Obviously, we both write them and this is a topic we like to geek out on. What is it about Egypt for you? When did this fascination start and why did you want to go? Luke: There’s so much about Egypt as a country, isn’t there, that just, it’s so evocative of the stories that we write, you know, there’s so much mysticism and so much magic there and, and it conjures up images from Hercule Poirot on the Nile solving murders to the glamor of Cleopatra, to the ambition of Rameses. And we are not the first writers to be captivated by this. This has happened from Shakespeare all the way forward through the romantic movements, people have been captivated by the magic of Egypt. But there’s also that mystery to it there. There’s things that people don’t know about Egypt. What were the pyramids for? How were they built? Of course, people say they’re tombs for the Pharaohs, but it’s far more interesting, I think, to consider some of the other theories about maps and power plants and really imaginative, fun stuff that makes our stories tick. Jo: Yeah. And it’s funny ’cause I was thinking about this in terms of why did I become obsessed with it? And you and I both have read a lot of the same books, you mentioned there that so many writers have done Egypt. And then of course I’m a little bit older than you, but Indiana Jones obviously and yet we still want to go and see it ourselves, I guess. And I remember when I was little, we went to Bristol Museum and there was a mummy there and we actually went back quite recently and it was a pretty crap mummy, to be honest. It was pretty bad. But as an 8-year-old, it made me think, what the hell? Who are these people? How is there a dead body here? Do you remember being interested in that macabre side and the Book of the Dead and hieroglyphics? Luke: Yeah, certainly. I think when I was maybe 12 or 14, The Mummy film, the first one, I think it, maybe it’s 1998 or 99 or something like this came out, and the whole thing about the mummification process, cutting the tongue out and pulling the brain out through the nose and all this grim stuff that just the kids just go wild for that. You’ve got a very sort of sick sense of humor, haven’t you, when you are of that age, and I remember that being fascinating as well. For sure. Jo: Yeah, and I had these hieroglyphic like activity books where I would try and draw the hieroglyphics and I, I really, I really did think I was gonna be like an archeologist, but then of course I went myself in the, I guess, more than a decade ago now. Thriller author Luke Richardson in Luxor, Egypt Tell us about your modern day trip. Luke: Yeah, so we went in 2000 and I have to remember now, 2003 in January, 2003, and I’d written the first draft of the book, I did it a bit backwards on this. I had written the book and I wanted to go to check if I got it right, and then it was with my editor at the time or my first group of readers. And then I took it back and then made all the changes about, no, it actually takes this length of time to walk from here to here or do this thing or that thing and, and sort of jiggled things around after going on the trip. But I knew for me it was really important. I was writing this book. I wanted it to be right. I wanted it to feel right. And for me, making that trip and I was fortunate enough to have the resources and have the time to be able to do that and incorporate that into my writing. Jo: Was it 2003, did you mean 2013? Luke: I meant 2023. Sorry, I’m getting completely confused. It was like two, three years ago! Jo: I was gonna say, how old were you?! Luke: It was 2 or 3 years ago, yeah. Jo: This is interesting because I went in, it must have been 2005, and one of the interesting things that we’re both obviously interested in is the pyramids. The Pyramids of Giza and when I went, there was still a really big distance between Cairo and the pyramids, but I imagine when you went, it was actually really close. Thriller author JFPenn in front of the pyramids of Giza, 2004 So tell us about that specific trip. Luke: Yeah, it’s, it’s Cairo, just sprawled. It’s an incredibly vast city that’s so noisy and polluted, and busy. I love places like that too, because it’s fun and it’s vibrant and there’s great markets and mosques and monasteries and temples. It’s a real sort of fusion of this African, Asian, with the European elements in there as well. It’s a really interesting city. And that’s featured in the book as well. Actually, I based part of it in this place called Manshiyat Nasser, which is the Garbage City they call it. And it’s become a little bit of an alternative tourist attraction. It’s on the hill or one of the hills in, in Cairo. And on the top of the hill there’s a monastery carved out of the rock. And you go inside and it’s this giant cave that seats about 600 people in this auditorium. And then you walk down the hill and you walk through the borough of the city where the people sort out the rubbish, they recycle Cairo’s rubbish. And on the ground floor of all these buildings, you’ve got people there sorting the the plastic forks and spoons into different trays and milk. Bottles from other bottles and glass for things to other things. And people coming in with donkeys and trucks laid them with this rubbish. And the thing that I loved about that is you walk through this place, and this is modern Egypt, right? This is the way life is in lots of places around the world. You walk through this place and there are people living this sort of simple life, doing the job that they do, but yet there are still hair salons and nail bars and tea shops and restaurants and all the stuff that we have in our towns is there too, just in a different way, you know? And I absolutely love that. It makes you think about your own existence. It helps you reflect on, I think, on some of the things that we hold important in our lives. Jo: And well, and in fact, even thinking about the ancient Egypt that’s inspired our modern thrillers as well, is that they have the same thing, you know, hair salons, and the like. I remember being fascinated by the little Egyptian glass jars that still you can find in the museums, and they were full of perfumes and all that kind of thing. That was just fascinating to me. And I was just thinking also, what’s different between our two trips almost 20 years apart. The other thing is when I went, I visited the Old Museum of Antiquities and it was crazy. I remember going in there and what was weird is it was crammed full. I mean, talk about the terrible mummies at Bristol Museum. This was mummies, mummies everywhere, like literally just hanging out and then everything had these tiny little handwritten notes on. It was a very strange experience. What kind of experience did you have with the museums? ’cause I think that has changed. Luke: Yes, it has. It is very different now. It’s this beautiful marble and chrome building. Really expansive, very sort of modern. It’s, it’s clearly had had a lot of investment in it. And you see that in the mummies and you can walk around and see them. They’re all arranged in their sort of family groups through the various eras of Egyptian history. But you’re right, it’s still, you look at it and you, you think that is a person. And I feel in our society, Europeans perhaps. Death is quite detached from us, isn’t it? It’s not something we see and experience in a visceral sense. We know about it. We know that it happens and we know people who have gone through it to put it in that sense, but we don’t often see them and actually seeing that person there and these are long dead people, you know, seeing that person there is is quite moving, isn’t it? Jo: And I guess the other thing we should talk about cliche, because this is the problem with a place like Egypt, I often find where like Venice is the same, right? People have this idea in their head and then it really might not be like that. Tell us about visiting like the pyramids. Everyone in their head has the pyramids. Tell us about that and the sphinx. What was that experience like? Luke: Yeah, it’s interesting, isn’t it, to think about that because you do have that sort of idea of what the

“The meaning of life is that it stops.” — Franz Kafka I’ve always felt most grateful to be alive when I walk among the dead. That might sound strange, but bear with me! Step through a lychgate into a church yard or descend a narrow stone stair into a catacomb or ossuary, and the pace and the noise of the world falls away. In these quiet spaces—graveyards beside ancient churches, sprawling Victorian cemeteries, underground chambers decorated with bones—I consider the shortness of life, memento mori, remember you will die, and it puts life into perspective. I can hear my own heartbeat more clearly, and the stories begin to rise. Paris catacombs, Photo licensed from Canva In this episode, I’ll take you with me to a handful of places that have shaped some of my stories and travel memoir. If you’ve read my ARKANE thrillers or the Brooke & Daniel series, you’ll recognise many of the names. But whether you’re here for research, reverence, or simple curiosity, I hope you’ll find something to spark your imagination and, perhaps, shift your perspective on these places that so many stay away from. What’s the difference between a graveyard, a cemetery, and an ossuary? Why am I so fascinated with these places? Sedlec Ossuary, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic Paris Catacombs, France Kensal Green Cemetery, London, England Crossbones Graveyard, Southwark, London, England St Louis Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans, USA Capuchin Catacombs, Palermo, Sicily Archbishop’s cadaver tomb, Canterbury Cathedral, England Mass grave in the Dohány Street Synagogue, Budapest, Hungary Graveyard of St Mary and All Saints, Boxley, Kent First, some definitions. What’s the difference between a graveyard, a cemetery, and an ossuary? A graveyard is usually a burial ground attached to a church, whereas a cemetery is a stand-alone burial area, for example, found near a crematorium, or a public burial ground. An ossuary, from the Latin ‘ossos’ for bone, is a container or chamber specifically to hold bones. It can be as small as a box, or as large as a chapel. In Europe, there are many ossuaries where the bones are used as decoration. Why am I so fascinated with these places? The Latin phrase memento mori—remember, you will die—has never felt morbid to me. It makes me grateful that I am alive on this day, to have the life I do, to love the people I love, and to be able to write and create. Life is indeed short, and I want to make the most of it. I find myself drawn to these places not out of some macabre fascination but because they strip away illusion. In a world obsessed with preserving youth and denying mortality, there is something profoundly honest about these places that honour death. The dates etched in stone. The names that no one remembers anymore, even this of the wealthy who thought they were important in life. The weathered gravestones, some leaning or sunken so deep they’re practically swallowed by the ground. All these make visible the brief span of our lives. This clarity energises me. I’m 50 as I write this, definitely middle-aged. If I am lucky to have decades left, how will I spend them? What stories will I tell? What experiences will I have? What challenges will I face? This relationship with death might be unusual in the modern west, but for most generations, and for many cultures even right now, it is a completely normal part of life. As Franz Kafka said, “The meaning of life is that it stops.” Perhaps it is our modern sensibility to avoid discussing death that is the more unusual. I hope to change that a little today, so come with me on a journey of the dead. Sedlec Ossuary, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic It was a freezing winters day back in 2015 when we took the train from Prague to visit the Sedlec Ossuary, also known as the Bone Church. I’d already spent hours researching it online and used it in my ARKANE thriller, Crypt of Bone, so I knew what to expect, but even so, it really is a macabre place. You enter a low arch and enter the ossuary, where candlelight glints off thousands of bones arranged in different ways. Alternating skulls and femurs are strung like garlands between larger decorated sections, a chandelier of pelvises, skulls and long bones hangs down, a coat of arms made from smaller bones and vertebrae is nailed to one wall. Sedlec Ossuary, Kutna Hora. Photo by JFPenn It’s really quite a small place with human skeletal remains everywhere you look, estimated to be between 40,000 to 70,000 people. Back in the 13th century, a monk brought back earth from the Holy Land and sprinkled it on the land here, which made people want to be buried at Sedlec. With the Black Death and many wars, thousands more were interred, and later the Gothic church was built and the bones moved to accommodate more dead. In 1870, a local woodcarver, František Rint, organised the bones, arranging them into the artistic designs you can see today. He even signed his name in bone on one wall, with a flourish of femurs and rib bones. I’m not sure if they’re his own bones, but that would be fitting. You can get to Sedlec on a day trip from Prague, either independently by train, or there are day trips through GetYourGuide.com and other providers. Paris Catacombs, France Paris above ground is the city of light and romance; Paris below is the empire of death. You need a ticket and when you enter in your time slot, you walk down a spiral staircase into cool darkness, and then along tunnels lit with bulbs before finally entering the catacombs themselves, probably the most famous of ossuaries with over six million dead in the network of underground tunnels and ancient quarries. In the late 18th century, Paris faced a public health crisis as overflowing cemeteries threatened to contaminate the water supply. The city authorities decided to move the remains beneath the city, resulting in today’s catacombs. There are markers in each section to denote which cemetery the remains came from, and at the first entrance, there is a warning on the stone: ‘Arrête! C’est ici l’empire de la mort.’ (“Stop! This is the empire of death.) Bone arch in the Paris Catacombs, Photo by JFPenn The bones are mostly neatly stacked and arranged, creating what feels like an infinite corridor of skulls and femurs, all illuminated by dim, flickering lights. There are some sections made into designs of shields and even a heart of skulls. You need a ticket to enter The Paris Catacombs, situated near the Metro station of Denfert-Rochereau. There are lots of stairs and it’s quite a walk if you are not used to it. Book well in advance since they have limited time slots at www.catacombes.paris.fr The exit, with its gothic-themed gift shop, pops you out at a different place and I found myself quite disorientated as I emerged into the sun once more. Kensal Green Cemetery, London If you enjoy a peaceful walk around a beautiful park with ornate tombs and memorials, Kensal Green Cemetery in London is definitely worth a visit. You don’t need a ticket and it’s free to access. It was established in 1832, and is one of London’s Magnificent Seven cemeteries. These were conceived in the Victorian era as park-like burial grounds to alleviate overcrowded churchyards and combat health hazards. But it’s a world away from what we might build as a public burial ground today, with beautiful memorials, tombs above ground similar to Père Lachaise in Paris, and statues of angels, broken columns, Egyptian obelisks, and other ‘memento mori’ markers. The Victorians understood that grief needs physical expression, tangible places to visit, stones to touch. When I walked there, I was inspired to use it as a setting in my crime thriller, Delirium. Tomb at Kensal Green cemetery, London, Photo by J.F. Penn There are also many famous historical people buried there from industrial engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, to author of The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins, and scientist Charles Babbage, inventor of the Difference Engine, which led to the first computer. You can find out more information at www.kensalgreencemetery.com and you can walk to it easier from Kensal Green train station, which has Overground and Underground lines. Crossbones Graveyard, Southwark, London Crossbones Graveyard in Southwark, London, is quite different from the formal Victorian cemeteries. It’s not even an official burial ground, and there are no graves, but in many ways, it is far more poignant to visit. In the 1990s, during excavations for an extension of an Underground train line, archaeologists found 148 skeletons in an unconsecrated burial ground. These were the outcasts of society, the women known as ‘Winchester Geese,’ medieval sex workers licensed by the Bishop of Winchester, along with their illegitimate children, and other marginalised people. For centuries, it lay largely forgotten. It’s now a memorial site with ribbons and mementos tied to the gates in remembrance of the Outcast Dead. Crossbones graveyard gates, London. Photo by JFPenn It’s compelling because it represents hidden history, the stories of ordinary people, often women, who lived miserable lives only a few blocks from the wealthy in their palaces and cathedrals. It features in the opening of my crime thriller, Deviance, which features some of the modern day outcasts in Southwark, which similar to medieval London has the wealth and power of the Shard, right next to some of the poor and outcast of society. The entrance to the remembrance garden is on Redcross Way, a short walk from London Bridge or Southwark train stations. I recommend you visit the grandeur of Southwark Cathedral first and the ruins of Winchester Palace, before walking a few blocks to Crossbones. https://crossbones.org.uk/ St Louis Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans, USA I visited New Orleans in March 2017 after a train journey from Chicago, and I was in serious book research mode! Back i

What makes the tiny island of Lindisfarne a “thin place” where the spiritual and physical worlds seem to meet? How does living in such a close-knit community shape one’s identity? And what secrets lie beyond the tourist paths on this ancient sacred site? LK Wilde and J.F. Penn talk about their love of Lindisfarne.Laura is the award-winning author of historical fiction, romance, and uplifting feel-good fiction. Her novel Silver Darlings is set on the Northumberland Island of Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island. Where is Lindisfarne and what makes it unique as a tidal island? Holy Island, the rich Celtic Christian heritage and Viking history What it’s like to grow up on a remote island with only 150 residents Lindisfarne as a “thin place” where spiritual experiences feel more accessible Natural wonders: sand dunes, seal colonies, and bird sanctuaries Essential safety tips for crossing the tidal causeway The fishing heritage that inspired Laura’s novel Silver Darlings Local delicacies: fish soup, fresh crab sandwiches and the potent monastic mead You can find Laura at LKWilde.com and her books on Amazon and other stores. Transcript Jo: Hello Travelers. I’m Jo Frances Penn, and today I’m here with LK Wilde. Welcome, Laura. Laura: Hello. Thank you for having me. Jo: It’s great to have you on. So little introduction. Laura is the award-winning author of historical fiction, romance, and uplifting feel-good fiction. Her novel Silver Darlings is set on the Northumberland Island of Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, here in England, which we are talking about today. So just to get us started. Where is Lindisfarne? How big is it? What makes it so special? Laura: It’s quite a famous place considering how small it is. It is off the coast of Northumberland, which for those who don’t know, it’s probably about halfway between Newcastle and Edinburgh. It’s really close to the Scottish border, and it’s a tidal island, so you can get across twice a day, there’s a road to drive across and it’s about eight or nine miles round, and there’s a population about 150. So you’ve got a very small village in one tiny corner of the island and then a big nature reserve. But it’s got quite an important historical significance considering when you look on a map, it’s a tiny little pinprick. Jo: It is really small. And so you said the eight or nine miles, just so people know, you can easily walk around that? Laura: You could. There’s not a path all the way around, so you’d have to do a bit of scrambling over rocks and things. But yes, you could definitely walk around it. Jo: As you said, really near the borders. And when I was there, only briefly, which we’ll come back to, but on that one side you are looking towards the coast of England. On the other side, what do you see looking off the other side? Stone cairns on the eastern coast of Lindisfarne Island Photo by JFPenn Laura: You can see the Farne Islands, which are a cluster of islands a bit further down the coast. And then a lot of sea. Jo: Exactly. And that’s the way the Vikings came, right? Laura: Yes. And I think you can still almost get that a bit in the accent. It’s quite unique. The accent on the island is a real mixture of Newcastle and Northeast and Scottish and they have their own words and things. I wonder how much influence from Scandinavian is in there too. Jo: That’s interesting. Do you speak that accent? Laura: No. I had to get a narrator to record the audiobook for me because I’ve tried, and when I went to school there, everyone used to say “Aye” instead of “Yes” when you did the register. And for me, with my very obvious Southern accent, it was so embarrassing. Jo: It’s great that you mention the accent because, for people listening who aren’t English or from the UK, it’s not that far. From where I am in Bath and you are in Cornwall, I mean, this is in our country and you can get there in a five or six hours train journey, I would think, and I was there and I also felt like an outsider with my accent. I didn’t really understand some of what people were saying, which really shocked me. I just wasn’t expecting that. Laura: No, it’s so different. People used to talk about a “muckle bari gaji,” which would mean a very attractive young man, but it’s just a whole set of words I’d never heard of. There’s quite a lot of examples like that. It makes it a very unique place, I think. Jo: I think that’s right. You said you went to school there, you lived there as a child. Tell us a bit about that. What do you remember from that time? Laura: So I moved there when I was 14 and I lived there till I was 18 and I was there with my younger sister and brother. My memories are in two categories, either extremely positive or extremely negative. I think with the passage of time, you tend to forget the boring moments in your life. But living there, there were no boring moments. It was either brilliant or terrible. And the good bits were amazing. The freedom of living somewhere like that. We’d come from a city, so there, we had our door open all the time. People would just come in and out as they wanted to. We could go off in the morning and my mom was fine with us coming back late at night and my brother was seven. So for him especially to have that freedom was really incredible. It’s for a relatively short period in my life. It’s probably the most significant group of years, I would say. Because it’s such a unique experience to live somewhere like that. Not just the remoteness, but everything that comes with island life. Jo: Well let’s get into that. So the freedom you said and the safety of being there, and I guess the natural side of things, but as a teenager, between the ages of 14 and 18, what were some of those negatives? Laura: Well, I think the main negative was when we weren’t on the island. There’s a primary school there and when we first arrived, all the national press came up because my brother was the only pupil in the school, and it was all in the papers that he was saving the island school. But for me and my sister, we would be picked up on a Monday morning outside our house with our suitcases and we’d be taken to a hostel in Berwick-upon-Tweed, the nearest town, and we would be there until the taxi came on Friday afternoon to take us home. So we effectively had to leave home. And it wasn’t like being in a boarding school where you’d have all that support. There were two wardens, but they had their own flats. You didn’t really see them. And it was a building that had been built for 30 to 40 kids. But by the time we were there, there were only five of us. So there were whole sections of this building that were shut off. And actually it was so bad that we were the last kids to be part of that setup. After us, they changed the system so kids would go to a local boarding school where they’d have all that support. Jo: Well, I think, I mean, really what you’re talking about, it sounds like the middle of nowhere. And that’s what’s so interesting because it is, Northumberland really does have a lot of remote areas, but it feels like you said Berwick-on-Tweed, it’s not that far to Edinburgh from there. So you weren’t in the middle of nowhere. But let’s, coming back to the island itself. So you mentioned island life. What does island life mean? Laura: I think it means very different things depending on why you are there. Which group you fall into. So there’s the religious community there and we were there because my dad was a church minister and he was sent there to – there was a church which had had no members anymore, and his job was to turn it into a visitor center. So we fell between these two groups where you had the religious community and then you had the everyday islanders who would do work in hospitality or fishing, or all sorts of other things. So I think within this one, very small community, people are living extremely different experiences. Ruins of Lindisfarne Priory Photo by JFPenn And as a teenager it was, we were removed from some of the politics within the community. The best times were in the holidays when other kids, like grandchildren of islanders would come and stay or holiday makers, and suddenly you’d have friends and you’d have people to hang around with, but it also meant the times that they weren’t there, we were with people of all ages. I think it gave us lots of skills in later life to be able to relate to people, not just our peers. Because we’d be going to these music groups with people in their sixties from all different backgrounds and things like that. So it is a very small community, but lots of different lifestyles within it. Jo: For your book, Silver Darlings, why did you want to revisit the island, and what community aspects did you bring in for that book? Laura: I wanted to revisit it. First of all, I started off with a memoir and writing about my experiences of living there as a teenager, but so much happened to our family. We went there as a what I considered a very strong family unit, and left as a broken family. My parents had separated, and so we all left separately, so I realized I couldn’t do anything with it. It was too personal. But I still wanted to capture that feeling of being a young person on the island. And then I started looking into the fishing heritage because the Celtic Christianity and everything is so famous and so many people go their own pilgrimage to experience that and the history. But there’s this whole period where the entire island was focused on fishing and everyone on the island was part of that community, and it was far more cohesive as a community than I think it probably is or certainly was when I was living there. And I really wanted to experience myself through these characters, what that side of it would’ve been like. And how a