Dear fellow travellers,
So whatever happened to hidden europe? With the publication of issue 70 of the magazine, our professional lives took a new turn. Our interest in European cultures and communities, and in slow and purposeful travel, now finds expression in many other writing projects. We also continue to do consultancy work in and around the travel industry.
Of course we have continued to travel hither and thither, just as much as we did when we were on the hunt for material for hidden europe magazine. We have returned to places which we really loved featuring in hidden europe, viz. the Lavaux region on the north flank of Lake Geneva, the North Frisian islands, Alsace and Liguria. It has been a real joy to rediscover that serendipitous sense of wandering without any obligation to think about our publication cycle. It has encouraged us to see the world anew.
But we have not forgotten the magazine. Over almost 20 years, we developed a huge corpus of wonderful writing and images. In order to share what's been dear to us over so many years, we have decided to now make more of this material available here on the hidden europe website.
This won’t happen overnight but over the coming months we shall publish online the full text of many articles which have hitherto only been accessible to subscribers via their member login. We are doing this as a pro bono project without any thought of commercial gain. We have revamped the hidden europe website and continue to work on it. Please take a look and see what you make of it. It will, as ever, remain an ad-free zone and we won’t accept sponsored links or any inducements from PR companies and tourist boards.
In taking this new phase of hidden europe forward, we are teaming up with our friend and colleague Paul Scraton. He is a well established Berlin-based writer and over many years, Paul contributed a series of wonderful articles for hidden europe. Indeed, for the final issue of the magazine he penned a very fine retrospect on how hidden europe has influenced him as a writer and a traveller.
This note marks the inauguration of this new phase of hidden europe. We’ll keep you in touch with developments by drawing attention to available content in forthcoming issues of our "Letter from Europe" (unless you request otherwise). Meanwhile, our sincere thanks to those who, as loyal subscribers to the magazine, helped finance a project that played a small part in fostering a style of travel writing which gently evokes the spirit of landscape and a strong sense of place.
Nicky Gardner and Susanne Kries
