I have a thing about Baedeker's guide books. The old ones, red and worn.

Put it down to reading "A Room With a View" too many times as a teenager, or incurably itchy feet combined with a love of history. Whatever it is, I can't get enough of them. The older the better.

I like it when I discover one hiding out among the other titles in an old book sale or secondhand bookshop. Modest, unassuming, the little red cover drawing me like a magnet. My collection is growing. And that's all it was going to be, until I found myself here in Belgium, with an old Baedeker for Belgium and Holland in my hand. And I thought - I wonder what it would be like to travel now, with an old pre-war Baedeker as my guide.

So I will.

(I will confess, there may be a slightly more modern guidebook in reserve sometimes. I may be quite happy to potter around by myself, relying only on a guidebook that's 100 years old, but I'm not sure that's entirely fair on my travelling companions!)