The following four stories are finalists in our 2025 New Travel Writer of the Year Competition. You can find the highly-commended and commended entries here.
The Finalists
The Birds of Auschwitz – Sarah Davies
‘The birds do sing at Auschwitz.’
This, the message I sent to my husband as I folded my body quietly into the seat. The coach was full of the teenagers we’d brought a thousand miles to see this. They were witnesses now – ambassadors – their silence a presence, like ghosts thronged at a funeral.
Strange that my first thought was to scotch a myth – to testify to birdsong and not to the empty suitcases, the long barrack rooms full of shoes. They were not all sensible lace-ups. High heels in faded scarlet, coquettish, sat askew as though just kicked off aching feet. You could see the imprint the woman had left in them, imagine the smell of leather and sweat.
In shiny glass cases, though, that stretched from floor to ceiling, from wall to wall, they also seemed sterile, lifeless. There were so incomprehensibly many.
The guides clipped through the rooms, ponytails swinging, brandishing the evidence:
‘Here is all human hair.’
‘This is the punishment cell. The prisoner could not lie or even sit down. Compared to Birkenau, this is like the Hilton.’
‘Here is the courtyard where they were shot.’
The words were like raps on fingers clinging to the cliff of belief in human goodness. They were aimed like bullets from assault rifles, fired into the dark, anticipating sceptics and deniers.
When you’re a History teacher, you spend your daily life flinching as you shine a torch into humanity’s darkest moments. Brush the cobwebs off the manuscripts, smash the museum cases and you find a palimpsest of blood. Your aim is ever to show your students how to quest for truth, but on days when you didn’t sleep, or have to teach Hiroshima twice, you can wish for a sanitised lab or the comfort of mathematics. They see me as a prophetess, the past my crystal ball. Will there be another war? Will the world burn? If there is a God, Miss, how can human beings do this to each other? No, my daily bread does not allow me the silken butter of denial.
‘Here is the gas chamber. This is a small one. Only fifteen hundred people at a time fit in here.’
That was where I stopped. I saw my colleague reach up and touch the wall, eyes closed, praying silently. I took a step backwards, exited the tour, gulping the fresh air.
This was a place hallowed by massacre, where the piled-up ghosts of the murdered shout their admonitions in the chill. But the dead did not feel served by the brisk guiding, the brusque delivery of sharp statistical shards. It seemed unreal: a buffed and polished theme park of death, smelling of wood tar and fresh paint. You try to imagine what cannot be imagined: if that were my hair, those my shoes, would I want them looked at through glass, by crowds of strangers? By someone whose job it is to take a cloth to the case and clean the dust from the floors at night? Or would I want them held to a chest rocked by mourning, worn in a locket next to a loving heart, then laid to rest in the earth at last?
Sinking into my coach seat, I felt processed and assaulted and perhaps that is the right way to feel. The metal detectors and body searches at the entrance, the relentless horror served up by the guides, just a tiny molecule of the flavour of the place. Its lesson: love one another, tolerate differences, do not discriminate, else this will happen again.
My first response, to look for some goodness and light; to tell tales of birdsong.
*
That night, we went with the students to experience a ‘Polish Night’. There were dumplings in every course and, dense with dough, we braced ourselves for the entertainment.
Heavily-moustached accordion players danced with abandon, defying gravity. They whirled with the music, a hypnotic kaleidoscope of lace and sweat. Drunk with tiredness, we lacked the strength to resist them when they pulled us into the fray. We were ridiculous – flung and flipped by men with fake horses, fierce grip and fireworks of facial hair.
We laughed until we cried. It was the volcanic sort of laughter which erupts and bends you double: it scours your soul of heaviness like a spin cycle in your gut. We held on to each other, tears rolling down red cheeks, as we led the way back through the streetlamp-light of Krakow.
We were exhausted that night, but by God we were fully alive. That, in the end, seemed the best remedy for death – living loudly in the present; trying a little harder to make someone smile; listening for birds at Auschwitz.
A Dance with Duende – Rebecca Legros
Capering along quiet alleyways, my heels hit hard on the cobbles with a rhythm that resounds the footwork of a flamenco dancer. Footsteps follow in my wake, I’m sure, but I spring along, carefree and too caught up in the energy of the evening.
It’s the dead of night and the deserted side streets are my shortcut home. I pulse with the evocative performance at the tablao bar I’ve left behind, concealed among the cave dwellings of Sacromonte – an out-of-the-way neighbourhood high in the hills above Granada – long the refuge of gypsies, and deeply rooted in the traditional dance of Spain. I step and stride to the strains of the passionate singing that fills my head, giddy with emotion.
The stillness of the streets echoes the late hour. I’ve walked this way – with friends and alone – many times after a night at a bar or flamenco club. I know the twists and turns from the hills of Sacromonte to the AlbaicÍn, the Moorish quarter I call home in my new life in Andalusia.
The footfalls are getting closer. But I am unflappable. Sangria infused. Feeling my full wits about me in almost picaresque fashion. Under false pretences, I’m as daring as the Artful Dodger, as impassioned as Don Quixote. I own these dark streets.
Distant sounds linger in the small hours; the vague voices of passersby walking parallel pathways, muffled music from bars still open for business, the slurred throttle of scooters on the main street somewhere below.
I loop through the labyrinth of age-old callejuelas; alleyways that are the beating heart of medieval Granada. In the daytime, this tangle of streets is an exquisite tableau of tight-knit whitewashed buildings and terracotta rooftops. Bougainvillea in vivid shades add colour pops to cobblestoned courtyards. The scent of pomegranate and persimmon, lemon and fig, permeate from trees bearing fruits of the season.
I love this city, and I dance and dip and skip. I am roused by the intensity of tonight’s performers; a cuadro of artists expressing their rich cultural heritage. A sole guitarist, a solemn singer and an inflamed dancer, improvising their sensual story of love and loss in our intimate smoky setting.
I round a corner into the Mirador San Nicolás, a panoramic plaza with the Alhambra Palace – that gargantuan fortress of Moorish majesty – gloriously illuminated on the opposite hillside. The square holds a few strays only at this hour. A lost soul strums a guitar and laments his woes to a straggle of bystanders. I look around for those earlier footsteps. Nothing.
Almost home. I cross to an alley and continue on my way.
Entrada …
… the beginning of the act. The bailaora (dancer) is motionless as she lets the music seize her. I suddenly stand stock-still. Quickening strides are closing in on me. Eyes shut, she loses herself in the haunting voice of the cantaor (singer), the rhythmic clapping of the audience, the trembling notes of the tacaor (guitarist).
A macabre silence steps in, but my head still pounds with the mournful strains of the cantaor. Electrified by the emotions of the duet, the bailaora begins her expressive dalliance. Her body swirls and writhes, her arms draw graceful gestures, her face is tight with the explosive torment within, the soles of her feet strike the floor in harmony. She embodies the spirit of her suffering in the music. A hand on my waist spins me round, a vuelta beyond my control. In a flash, I face terror.
Desplante …
… the boldness of the act. The bailaora intensifies her intricate dance to the sharpened strums of the tacaor. A brazenness takes over and a fierce climax fuels the spectacle as she reels and rotates with rapture. My attacker reveals his bravado. Tight in his grip, I catch the glint of the blade he brandishes. The weight of his bulk imbues the blackness. He is blatant in the act, a bullfighter asserting his banderilla for a strike. I am strangely removed, but rebellion is surging inside.
Salida …
… the finale. In an intense dénouement, the bailaora’s display triumphs and transcends into ‘duende’. Exhilarated, she achieves the soul of her art. Her performance is done. Tense and entrapped, an almost primeval outburst takes hold. Deep from within, I let out a cry. A wail that imitates the intensely woeful sound of the cantaor. Piercing and overpowering, hard and hoarse and intimidating to my enemy. Seconds ago, an assailant wielding a weapon seized me, and just as suddenly he is gone. He disappears into the darkness, fearful of duende, the spirit of the dancer in me.
Panicked, but proud of my performance, I sprint the last stretch home. I won’t be defeated. I too have achieved the power of duende; this city has given me its soul.
Later or Sooner – Julie Ajdour
Once upon a time, when I was young and fair, I was eating a piece of rhubarb pie with slagroom.
That pie was in a cafe in Castlebar, Ireland.
That cafe was beside a bus stop.
That day, I was bound and determined to take that bus to the Connemara Pony Show.
An ancient gent siddled up to my table. Here’s what he said to me.
“I know where the most beautiful place in the world is, and I’m willing to draw you a map.”
Well, that pie was tart and so was I, but what an opening line. Any lads that may be reading this, take note.
Who would shut such a conversation down?
“Oh, me? I’ve absolutely no interest in learning where the most beautiful place in the world is. Take your stupid map and be off with you.”
Would you say that?
Me neither.
I gave him a napkin to sketch his map. I may or may not have bought him a cup of tea. Probably it was tea with milk. It’s hard to remember as we were always treating strangers to something back in those days and they us. That’s how the world did function then. I do remember that he had no interest in a piece of rhubarb pie, a pie that I was quite smitten with.
He sketched slowly and rambled on.
I kept my eye on the time.
My bus pulled up.
I really wanted that map. Oh, how I wanted that map!
Wouldn’t you?
I slammed down a few pounds, flicked my mane of hair like an impatient pony, and snatched up the napkin. I bid the old gentleman an abrupt farewell and bolted for the bus.
The doors snapped briskly behind me.
And that was that.
The napkin was securely in my handbag, or rather my backpack as that’s what I was carrying that day to the pony show. I wasn’t the handbag sort yet.
Ah, Connemara on that day in August.
The vivid cerise and purple of the fuschia hedges.
The freshness of the fish and the way you could deliberately pick the backbone out of it all in one piece.
The ruffling breeze of the salt air and the way it made a Chantilly cream pony toss its mane.
Everything about the west of Ireland back then, I feel it in my bones like it was yesterday.
*
I did not buy a horse.
I held onto the map.
Through jobs and childbirth and diapers and carpool and moves here and there and cancer surgery and work,work,work? Through days of feeling gutted like a fish and as if someone had delicately removed my backbone? You’d better believe that I held onto that map. Every snap of my handbag clasp (yes, I was that type now) reminded me of the crisp click of that bus door back in County Galway.
Now I’m much older than that girl. I suppose this is obvious. I’m not so fair anymore either, but this is fine. After all, I am alive. And I excel at passing bone density tests, probably due to insisting on real cream in my coffee. I learned more than one thing in that cafe in Castlebar.
The map did not fade.
It’s rather like something out of a fairy tale.
The destination is the apex of a triangle, not a town.
It’s on the European continent.
But here’s the hitch.
Can anyplace in the world be more glorious than anticipation?
Can anyplace in the world these days be more exquisite than that August day in the west of Ireland in those times?
Just the sheer taste of that pie…the butteryness of the crust, the rang of the rhubarb, the billow of the Chantilly cream. There was nothing cloying or pretend about that pie. It was full-bodied and real. Delicious surprises are around every corner.
I click that map out of my handbag.
I hear that same snappy sound that those bus doors made after I bolted from the cafe. My balding, er, maturing husband starts the engine of our rental car.
Meet you at the offramp?
A Vital Warning Ignored – Jacqui Hitt
The carriage door slammed shut, and the sardine-can-of-a-train juddered into motion. Then we saw them. A group of young men in the shadows. Half-drunk and staring at us narrow-eyed; hungry, as if they couldn’t believe their luck.
I’d seen their type before, hanging out on dingy park corners in Belgrade, dressed in torn black jeans and jackets, with poorly cut hair and reeking of Russian cigarettes. Usually a bottle of beer or plum brandy held against their chapped lips. Able to turn on the charm, but beneath the surface, restless, arrogant and full of ire.
An empty glass bottle clink clinked against the carriage wall in rhythm with the moving train. Patsy and I looked at each other. Remembered what my host mother had said. “Do NOT take the slow train,” had been her exact words. “They’re not safe! Particularly for foreign young women like you.” Now, stood feet away from us, was the reason for her warning.
The train laboured on, swaying from side to side like a boat in high swell, accompanied by an unceasing high-pitched rasp: the sound of rusting wheels scraping across rocking rails. Hearts pounding, the bitter taste of coal dust caught in the back of our throats. This wasn’t an adventure Patsy, or I, wanted.
Sliding out of their plastic seats, the gang slunk closer. With a twisted grin, the tallest one leant towards me, shoved an open bottle in my face. “Have a swig!” he insisted. Another leered, while his mate slurred suggestive words in Serbian. The oldest looking one, greedily eyed Patsy’s long blond hair and the bags between my feet. Even though we hadn’t said a single word, they had worked out we were foreign. Fair game in other words. Not fellow passengers but prey.
The men were around us then. Taunting. Thrusting. Toying. All they wanted was a little ‘zabava’. Never had the word for fun sounded so menacing. One put his arm around Patsy and whispered in her ear. Another grabbed my shoulder, roughly pulled me to my feet. Surrounded and outnumbered, we knew the danger we were in.
Then, the train came to a shuddering halt, and a middle-aged man in a wide-brimmed cap and well-worn uniform appeared through the door. The gang shrank back, but not before the conductor had seen the terror in our eyes. Taking swift control, he motioned us to follow him. We stumbled out onto the dark platform, our bags held tightly in shaking hands. As we walked over to the tiny ticket office, the gang followed like a pack of pacing hyenas. They hadn’t given up the chase. We waited in the office, watched the slow train pull away.
“There will be another one along any moment now,” the conductor reassured us. “A faster, busier one. An express.” There was no point calling the police, he explained, because he had a plan. He knew how to get us safely back to Belgrade. “Trust me,” he said. “I have two daughters about your age…” Then a loud whistle screamed, and another train pulled in, and out of a small side door we slipped. The gang were too busy quarrelling amongst themselves to notice our escape.
The conductor did have a plan. A simple and effective one. Rather than putting us in an empty compartment, he ushered us into one occupied by a large local family: an old grandmother, her two burly middle-aged sons, their wives and assorted offspring. In hushed but rapid Serbian, the conductor explained the predicament we were in.
“It will be a squash, but hide these young women,” he said. “Keep them out of sight. Save them from that gang of young men.” He nodded in the direction of the men pushing and shoving each other angrily on the platform outside.
Without wavering, the family did exactly as requested. Patsy was huddled on the floor beneath a pile of the children’s coats, while I was squeezed into a corner and covered from head to toe in the grandmother’s thick woollen shawl. The sons stood guard at the compartment door as the conductor wished us well and departed, slamming the door tight shut. A lock clicked, another whistle blew, and the express train picked up speed. In a matter of moments, the sound of the gang shouting obscenities faded into the cold, fog-bound night.
When we were safely on our way, the wives unwrapped us, offered us water, cake and sweets. The kids sang cheeky songs and began playing cards. The grandmother hugged me. “You are OK now,” she said. “Did no-one tell you NEVER to take a slow train? Certainly not nice, young, foreign girls like you.”
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