An early start from Paris de l’Est took us through countryside swathed in mist which rose as voile curtains of steam as we crossed the Rhine into Germany.

Crossing rivers somehow captures a spirituality of threshold and new possibilities. All my life I have longed to see the Rhine, and more especially, the Danube. Passing Ulm Minster’s lacy, airy, light spire I sense in the architecture an icon for our times; as I write, the Danube is flowing beneath us, the bridge linking Baden-Wurttemberg with Bavaria.

Bridges as thresholds of openness, connection and engagement with ‘the other’ feel to speak to our planet’s international relations at this moment in history.