The art of travel (3)

«Charles Baudelaire was born in Paris in 1821. From an early age, he felt uncomfortable at home. (...) He dreamt of leaving France for somewhere else, somewhere far away, on another continent, with no reminders of 'the everyday' - a term of horror for the poet; (...) noting: 'Life is a hospital in which every patient is obsessed with changing beds' This one wants to suffer in front of the radiator, and that one thinks he'd get better if he was by the window'. (...) Sometimes Baudelaire dreamt of going to Lisbon. It would be warm there and he would, like a lizard, gain strength from stretching himseld out in the sun. It was a city of water, marble and light, conductive to thought and calm. But almost from the moment he conceived of this Portuguese fantasy, he would start to wonder if he might be not be happier in Holland. Then again, why not Java or else the Baltic or even the North Pole (...). The destination was not really the point. The true desire was to get away, to go, as he concluded, 'Anywhere! Anywhere! So long as it is out of the world!'.»