Someone once quipped that there are only two plots in all literature: either you go on a journey or a stranger comes to town. It takes no great literary expertise to divine that, on the whole, it was men who went on journeys while women stayed at home waiting for a stranger to arrive in town. But there were some remarkable early women travel writers. Some, like Gertrude Bell, Edith Durham and Rebecca West have already featured in hidden europe. We shall explore some more travel writing classics in the next issue of hidden europe.

In hidden europe 11, which will be published on 3 November 2006, we shall visit the Lithuanian village of Trakai, which is home to one of Europe's most remarkable cultural minorities. We shall also report from the self styled and often fraught Republic of Abkhazia that is tucked away on the Black Sea coast between Russia and Georgia. And we shall enquire what happens to all that French wine in November, now that the western European craze for Beaujolais Nouveau has faded.