That excellent magazine Intelligent Life (from the same stable as The Economist) often has some good travel writing, and its current issue is no exception.

Tom Whipple, who has visited the monastic fastness of Mount Athos in Greece four times, ponders what it is that keeps pulling him back; Sara Wheeler (who is writing a book about Russia) considers the role of the railway in Russian life and literature; and Philip Hoare recalls adventures in the Azores, “a place of safety for whales”.