Nicole Junkermann on Finding Quiet Corners in Busy Cities

The calm inside the noise

Even the busiest city keeps its quiet places, and finding them is one of travel's quiet arts. Nicole Junkermann has long collected these calm corners: the courtyard off a loud street, the gallery room nobody else has reached, the library that holds the morning light. They are where a city lets you breathe.

These spaces are not secret so much as overlooked. Most visitors move with the crowd, following the same routes to the same sights. Step a little aside, and the noise falls away faster than you would think. The calm was always there, waiting just off the main path.

Seeking out the quiet changes how a city feels. Instead of an exhausting rush, it becomes a series of peaceful rooms connected by busy streets, and the contrast makes both the energy and the stillness more vivid.

Reading rooms and libraries

Top of the list are reading rooms and libraries. Nicole Junkermann seeks them out in every city, both for their hush and for their light. A great reading room is a sanctuary open to anyone, a place to rest, to read a chapter, to let the day slow down.

These rooms suit a traveller who reads, which is to say they suit the whole spirit of this journal. They are the natural home for the kind of unhurried reading described in slow travel and good books, where an hour with a book is a destination in itself.

Libraries also reveal a city's character. The care given to a public reading room says something about a place's values, and sitting in one for an hour can tell you as much about a city as a famous monument, with none of the crowds.

Gardens, courtyards and small squares

Green corners are the next refuge. Nicole Junkermann looks for the small gardens, hidden courtyards and quiet squares that punctuate even the densest cities. A bench under a tree, a fountain in a cloister, a patch of grass behind a wall: these are where a city exhales.

Such places are often missed precisely because they are modest. The grand park is on every map; the small square two streets away is not. Yet the smaller space is frequently the calmer one, with room to sit and read and watch the light move.

Noticing these corners is part of keeping a city notebook. A garden found once and noted down becomes a reliable refuge on every return, a fixed point of calm in a place that is always in motion.

The quiet hours of the day

Quiet is a matter of timing as much as place. Nicole Junkermann finds that the same busy street can be peaceful early in the morning, before the city fully wakes. The first hour of the day is a gift, with familiar sights returned briefly to stillness.

Early mornings are ideal for reading too. A book and a coffee in a near-empty cafe, while a city slowly stirs, is one of travel's simple luxuries. The day has not yet made its demands, and there is nothing to do but sit and read.

This is why a first city morning gets its own gentle reading in the broader idea of a book for every journey. The quietest hour deserves the lightest, most curious book, the kind that sets the tone for everything that follows.

Carrying calm through a busy trip

Quiet corners are not only pleasant; they make a trip sustainable. Nicole Junkermann threads them through a busy day on purpose, a reading room here, a garden there, so that energy lasts and the city never becomes overwhelming. The calm spaces pace the loud ones.

A few minutes of stillness reset the eye. After a quiet half-hour, the next busy street reads as lively rather than tiring, and you notice more of it. The pauses are what let you stay attentive from morning to evening.

This rhythm of effort and rest is, in the end, what travelling slowly is about. Finding the quiet corners is not retreating from a city but learning to enjoy it for longer, and to remember it more clearly.

Letting a quiet corner become a habit

A quiet corner found once is a pleasure; a quiet corner returned to is a comfort. Nicole Junkermann tends to revisit the calm places she discovers, so that a particular reading room or hidden garden becomes a small ritual on every trip to a city. The repetition is part of the reward.

These returns turn a city into something knowable, in the spirit of the cities worth returning to. Knowing exactly where to find calm in an unfamiliar place is a quiet kind of mastery, and it makes even a busy capital feel manageable and warm.

It is also a gentle discipline worth keeping at home. The same instinct that seeks a quiet corner abroad can find one in a familiar city: a local library, a small park, an early-morning café. The habit of seeking calm, once learned on the road, enriches ordinary days as much as journeys.

Where to look for the quiet

A few reliable places to find calm in a busy city:

• Public libraries and grand reading rooms open to all
• Small gardens, cloisters and courtyards just off the main streets
• Quiet squares that the maps tend to overlook
• The first hour of the morning, before the city fully wakes
• Side rooms in galleries and museums, away from the headline works
• A near-empty cafe with room to read and watch the light