IN SUCH TIMES
when one might rue lost time, it behooves us at least to try and make sense of the world in which we live. For this, we invite you to consider the words of popular English writer, poet and linguistic academician John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, who wrote: “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Tolkien was orphaned by the age of 12, fell in love with Edith Bratt at the age of 16 and five years later proposed marriage to her. Despite Bratt’s prior acceptance of another gentleman’s proposal, she returned the engagement ring and accepted Tolkien’s offer instead. In a letter to his son Michael, he expressed his admiration for his wife’s “willingness to marry a man with no job, little money and no prospects except the likelihood of being killed in the Great War”. Instead, the Tolkiens lived through two world wars and the 1918 influenza pandemic with four children in tow. Tolkien’s success with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings allowed him to move to the pleasant South Coast resort of Bournemouth with Edith, where they enjoyed social life and caring for grandchildren.
In much the same way, despite the temporary suspension of what we used to know, time obligates us to make the best of it. It is within this light that we offer you this May issue, filled with the dream machines to aid you in your adventures to come. Be it by sea, land or air, you will discover the vehicular means in which new adventures will be had; from the genre-refining MercedesBenz S-Class and a fleet of new luxury yachts, to a trio of electric aircraft with the capability for short take-off and landing, which will turn rooftops into landing strips.
Beyond sipping on a Sassicaia, we offer yet another way to Tuscany; through our story of the quaint seaside town of Viareggio, the world hub for superyacht construction. This “yachtsman’s answer to Rodeo Drive” is home to some of the most famous shipyards for superyachts: Benetti, Sanlorenzo, Mangusta and Rossinavi, among others. Read on and be transported and before you know it – and we would quote Tolkien again – “little by little, one travels far”.
Enjoy the issue.