TRAVEL IN STYLE
Dashing Lady BESSIE COLEMAN, the first African-American aviatrix, who got an international pilot’s license and the lady currently on our banner picture in our FB-group Club of the Dashing Ladies
More about her here:
https://airandspace.si.edu/…/…/women-in-aviation/coleman.cfm
We are proud to say that the Scottish Tartan Authority just approved of Les Soeurs Nomades Tartan Designs RANNOCH MOOR and SKYE and we are now registered!
TARTAN RANNOCH MOOR
TARTAN SKYE
It almost feels like we are founding A CLAN.
Nowadays there are many clan tartans, which are more or less exclusively worn by the clan-members. But the clan tartan itself is an invention of the 19th century, when through the writings of Sir Walter Scott and Queen Victoria‘s Love for Scotland all things Scottish and with it the tartan was suddenly very much en vogue.
(The cover is dreadful, but the book was quite the page-turner!)
(Young Victoria in front of Balmoral Castle ca. 1830ies)
(Queen Victoria in a colourized photograph 1858)
(Silk-velvet tartan dress worn by Queen Victoria, 1835-37)
And so people started to dig out hidden kilts and plaids in the attic. On this wave of nostalgic Tartan-mania swam two inventive brothers calling themselves Sobieski-Stuart, and thereby cleverly feeding the rumour, that they were the Grandsons of Bonnie Prince Charlie. They gave out an illustrated book, the Vestiarium Scoticum, a supposed manuscript of clan tartans of the 15th century. Many believed in the well-played hoax, which opened many doors (and purses) for the brothers.
However, as above mentioned, the use of clan tartans is largely a 19th century affair. The Highland culture had to be revived and reinvented after the past bleak decades:
After the Battle of Culloden in 1746, where the Highlanders were devastated by the English Army,the speaking of the Gaelic language andthe wearing of kilt and tartanWAS BANNED. And thereby the Highland Culture with its clan structure as it existed until this time was destroyed.
The Highland Clearances, during which most of the land was given to sheep and people were driven away, were the reason for a wave of Scottish emigration and the tartan was exported to far-away places of the earth (like Canada for example!)
Before the reappearance of the tartans in the beginning of the 19th century, tartans tended to be attached much rather to a REGION than to a clan, since for the colouring of the yarns local plant dyes were used.
Eriskay crofter shearing sheep and dying the yarn (documentary from 1935)
Nice photo-essay from Matthew Newsome about the colours of tartan here.
Our tartans are also inspired by the colours of the Scottish landscape:
Two Swiss sisters, far from their native Highlands,
walking on a clear morning before sunrise
over the frozen bogs of Rannoch Moor
and hatching a plan to have their own tartan.
Woven in this tartan the splendour of the landscapes they saw:
The colours of the moor and the wintry sea on Skye
when rays of sun break through the looming clouds
which have been throwing down sleet
on the two sisters just some minutes before.
Our tartan scarves will be woven in Scotland by Ashleigh Slater of Warpweftweavestudio with 100% pure new wool from Knoll Yarns in Yorkshire.
They will be available this spring by crowd-funding. If you would like to be informed when we start and you can order your scarf, please subscribe to our newsletter or send us an email to sisters(at)les-soeurs-nomades.com, thank you!
Read more about the fascinating history of the tartan here:
How to wear a historic kilt (“a wee bit o’ kilt porn”)
Where to stay: In the cosy STF Huts along the way. Or even better, pitch your own tent in the most stunning locations anywhere along the trail.
Where to eat: Cook your own outdoor meals, buy some reindeer or smoked fish at one of the Sami villages, or try out the famous three course dinner at the Fjällstation in Saltoluokta.
What to do: Hiking, ouf course. And stay up at night to see the northern lights or watch the resident moose near Kaitumjaure Hut.
How to get there: take the overnight train from Stockholm up north. Starting/Ending points for the most northern part are Kvikkjokk, Vakkotavare or Abisko. For bus/train connections and bookings see http://www.sj.se
Where to sleep: Hotel Alexandros or, if you want to spend more of your money: Patmos Aktis, directly at the beach.
Where to eat: in the classical Ouzeri Chiliomodi, Skala, the more upscale Restaurant of the Tarsanas Marine Club
What to do: Rent a scooter and explore the island and its beaches. Have a drink in the Taverna To Diakofto at sundown after your walk to the sandy beach of Psili Ammos. Visit the Monastery of St. John in Chora and and admire over 2000-year-old coptic fabrics in the monastery’s museum.
If you make a stop-over in Athens, don’t miss the stunning new Akropolis Museum, it is breath-taking.
(picture from the mentioned article)
Annie Londonderry (actually Annie Cohen Kopchovsky, 1870-1947), first woman to have bicycled around the world!
Nice article here: totalwomenscycling.com/lifestyle/10-facts-annie-londonderry
And an enjoyable documentary trailer about her from Gillian Willman here:
vimeo.com/60861003
Enjoy!
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Amelia Earhart! – Here is an article (in German) about this daring pilot – whose disappearance is still a mystery…
http://www.pressreader.com/…/20170…/282144996274792/textview
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Her father raised her like a boy, she was introduced to a scientific education, she wore trousers and learnt how to shoot and play the violin. After her father’s death she was forced to concern herself with household duties and play the piano like a well-behaved girl should. She fell in love with her tutor, who wanted to marry her, but he wasn’t good enough for her ambitious mother. Finally, Ida settled for a marriage of convenience, but her unsuccessful husband didn’t provide her with the life her mother had imagined for her. Ida would most probably have been better of with her former tutor Emil Trimmel, who vowed to stay true to her. (Indeed, he never married and wrote her letters his whole life.) When her children finally had grown up and her husband had died, Ida visited a cousin in Triest and while looking over the sea a most passionate yearning to travel overwhelmed her. Finally, at the age of 44 on the 22nd of march 1842, Ida set out. To justify her first travel, she chose Jerusalem as her destination and declared it a pilgrimage. But, oh girl, what a journey it would be! She traveled under adventurous circumstances to Constantinople, the Dead Sea, Alexandria and Siciliy, just to name a few.
More pictures of this journey here.
“Die wundervollen Moscheen mit ihren fein gezeichneten Minaretten, die Paläste und Harems, die Kioske und grossen Kasernen, die Gärten, die Boskette (Lustwäldchen) und Waldungen von Zypressen, die vielfarbig angestrichenen Häuser, über welche oft wieder einzelne Zypressen ihre schlanken Gipfel erheben, und endlich der ungeheure Wald von Masten – dies alles bildet einen unbeschreiblich überraschenden Anblick.” (“The splendid mosques with their finely drawn minarets, the palaces and harems, the kiosks and the barracks, the gardens, the bosquets (trees in a park) and groves of cypresses, the multicolored striking houses, over which often single cypresses rise their slender peaks, and finally the immense forest of masts – all this makes an indescribable surprising sight.”)
Her vivid descriptions of the scenery and the people (though from todays point of view with a rather euro-centristic perspective) where an instant hit when published and the money from her published travel diaries allowed her to travel on. She did manage to travel around the world two times (!) and would have gone on if the Malaria hadn’t stopped her.
More of this beautful illustrations in this book.
To know more about her trips I recommend to read her diaries or a biography. I read the one of Gabriele Habinger mentioned below and it was seriously fun.
Ida Pfeiffer now has an cenotaph at the Vienna Central Cemetery (Ehrengrab am Wiener Zentralfriedhof) which I recently visited to honor this intrepid traveler, who didn’t – thankfully – do what she was told…
More of Ida Pfeiffer in this book: Habinger, Gabriele: Eine Wiener Biedermeierdame erobert die Welt. Die Lebensgeschichte der Ida Pfeiffer (1797-1858).
Unfortunately just in German. However, you can find some of the original diaries of Pfeiffer in English on archive.org.
Her first trip even as audiobook: Visit to the Holy Land, Egypt and Italy.
Enjoy!
Where to sleep: Between old walls in a cosy room in Burnley House
Where to eat: Where everyone goes – The pub (there is just the one)
What to do: Walk over the moors and wait for Heathcliff
Where to sleep: In the satisfyingly retro Victoria Hotel
Where to eat: The question should be rather: what to eat? Fresh seafood, of course!
What to do: Hike along the coast and enjoy the stunning view.
What to do: Walk on the ancient city walls. Drink local ale. Admire the old and crooked town houses.
