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Between the Woods and the Water: On Foot to Constantinople: From The Middle Danube to the Iron Gates (New York Review Books Classics) Paperback – October 3, 2005

4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 757 ratings

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Continuing the epic foot journey across Europe begun in A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor writes about walking from Hungary to the Balkans. 

The journey that Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on in 1933—to cross Europe on foot with an emergency allowance of one pound a day—proved so rich in experiences that when much later he sat down to describe them, they overflowed into more than one volume. Undertaken as the storms of war gathered, and providing a background for the events that were beginning to unfold in Central Europe, Leigh Fermor’s still-unfinished account of his journey has established itself as a modern classic.
Between the Woods and the Water, the second volume of a projected three, has garnered as many prizes as its celebrated predecessor, A Time of Gifts.

The opening of the book finds Leigh Fermor crossing the Danube—at the very moment where his first volume left off. A detour to the luminous splendors of Prague is followed by a trip downriver to Budapest, passage on horseback across the Great Hungarian Plain, and a crossing of the Romanian border into Transylvania. Remote castles, mountain villages, monasteries and towering ranges that are the haunt of bears, wolves, eagles, gypsies, and a variety of sects are all savored in the approach to the Iron Gates, the division between the Carpathian mountains and the Balkans, where, for now, the story ends.
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From the Publisher

A Time of Gifts Between the Woods and the Water The Broken Road A Time to Keep Silence Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece
A Time of Gifts Between the Woods and the Water The Broken Road A Time to Keep Silence Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece
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About this book In this work, Patrick Leigh Fermor recounts the first leg of a 1934 cross-continental walk. Patrick Leigh Fermor recounts the second leg of his 1934 trek to Constantinople. The third and final volume of Patrick Leigh Fermor's legendary trek across Europe. Patrick Leigh Fermor chronicles his several sojourns in some of Europe's oldest and most celebrated monasteries. Patrick Leigh Fermor on his journeys amongst the peoples of the southern-most parts of Greece. Patrick Leigh Fermor tells of his wanderings in and around Northern Greece.
The Traveller's Tree: A Journey through the Caribbean Islands The Violins of Saint-Jacques Patrick Leigh Fermor: A Life in Letters In Tearing Haste Abducting a General: The Kreipe Operation in Crete Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure
The Traveller's Tree: A Journey through the Caribbean Islands The Violins of Saint-Jacques Patrick Leigh Fermor: A Life in Letters In Tearing Haste: Letters between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor Abducting a General: The Kreipe Operation in Crete Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure
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About this book Patrick Leigh Fermor on his travels around the Caribbean. Patrick Leigh Fermor's only novel, about disaster on a small, fictional island. Letters spanning almost seventy years of Patrick Leigh Fermor's life. The punchy correspondence between Patrick Leigh Fermor and Deborah Mitford, the Duchess of Devonshire. Patrick Leigh Fermor's account of kidnapping General Kreipe, the German commander in Crete, on April 26, 1944. Artemis Cooper's celebrated biography of the intrepid travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Those for whom Paddy’s prose is still an undiscovered country are to be envied for what lies ahead-hours with one of the most buoyant and curious personalities one can find in English." — The New York Sun

"Mr. Fermor…is a peerless companion, unbound by timetable or convention, relentless in his high spirits and curiosity." — Richard B. Woodward,
The New York Times

"We are aware at every step that his adventure can never be duplicated: only this extraordinary person at this pivotal time could have experienced and recorded many of these sights. Distant lightening from events in Germany weirdly illuminates the trail of this free spirit." —
The New York Times

"The young Fermor appears to have been as delightful a traveling companion as the much older Fermor a raconteur." —
The Houston Chronicle

"[
A Time of Gifts, Between the Woods and the Water] are absolutely delightful volumes, both for those who want to better understand what was lost in the violence of Europe’s 20th-century divisions and for those who appreciate the beauty and thrill of travel writing at its best." — The Houston Chronicle

"Leigh Fermor is recognizably that figure many writers of the past century have yearned to be, the man of action." —
The Guardian

"He was, and remains, an Englishman, with so much living to his credit that the lives conducted by the rest of us seem barely sentient-pinched and paltry things, laughably provincial in their scope, and no more fruitful than sleepwalks. We fret about our kids’ S.A.T. scores, whereas this man, when he was barely more than a kid himself, shouldered a rucksack and walked from Rotterdam to Istanbul." — Anthony Lane,
The New Yorker

“Even more magical...through Hungary, its lost province of Transylvania, and into Romania...sampling the tail end of a languid, urbane and anglophile way of life that would soon be swept away forever.” —Jeremy Lewis,
Literary Review

“In these two volumes of extraordinary lyrical beauty and discursive, staggering erudition, Leigh Fermor recounted his first great excursion... They’re partially about an older author’s encounter with his young self, but they’re mostly an evocation of a lost Mitteleuropa of wild horses and dark forests, of ancient synagogues and vivacious Jewish coffeehouses, of Hussars and Uhlans, and of high-spirited and deeply eccentric patricians with vast libraries (such as the Transylvanian count who was a famous entomologist specializing in Far Eastern moths and who spoke perfect English, though with a heavy Scottish accent, thanks to his Highland nanny). These books amply display Leigh Fermor’s keen eye and preternatural ear for languages, but what sets them apart, besides the utterly engagin persona of their narrator, is his historical imagination and intricate sense of historical linkage... Few writers are as alive to the persistence of the past (he’s ever alert to the historical forces that account for the shifts in custom, language, architecture, and costume that he discerns), and I’ve read none who are so sensitive to the layers of invasion that define the part of Europe he depicts here. The unusual vantage point of these books lends them great pregnancy, for we and the author know what the youthful Leigh Fermor cannot: that the war will tear the scenery and shatter the buildings he evokes; that German and Soviet occupation will uproot the beguiling world of those Tolstoyan nobles; and that in fact very few people who became his friends on this marvelous and sunny journey will survive the coming catastrophe.” -- Benjamin Schwartz,
The Atlantic

"This is a glorious feast, the account of a walk in 1934 from the Hook of Holland to what was then Constantinople. The 18-year-old Fermor began by sleeping in barns but, after meeting some landowners early on, got occasional introductions to castles. So he experienced life from both sides, and with all the senses, absorbing everything: flora and fauna, art and architecture, geography, clothing, music, foods, religions, languages. Writing the book decades after the fact, in a baroque style that is always rigorous, never flowery, he was able to inject historical depth while still retaining the feeling of boyish enthusiasm and boundless curiosity. This is the first of a still uncompleted trilogy; the second volume, Between the Woods and the Water, takes him through Hungary and Romania; together they capture better than any books I know the remedial, intoxicating joy of travel." — Thomas Swick, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

“Recovers the innocence and the excitement of youth, when everything was possible and the world seemed luminescent with promise. ...Even more magical...through Hungary, its lost province of Transylvania, and into Romania... sampling the tail end of a languid, urbane and anglophile way of life that would soon be swept away forever.” —Jeremy Lewis,
Literary Review

“A book so good you resent finishing it.” —Norman Stone

"The greatest of living travel writers…an amazingly complex and subtle evocation of a place that is no more." — Jan Morris


Praise for Patrick Leigh Fermor:

"One of the greatest travel writers of all time”–
The Sunday Times

“A unique mixture of hero, historian, traveler and writer; the last and the greatest of a generation whose like we won't see again.”–
Geographical

“The finest traveling companion we could ever have . . . His head is stocked with enough cultural lore and poetic fancy to make every league an adventure.” –
Evening Standard

If all Europe were laid waste tomorrow, one might do worse than attempt to recreate it, or at least to preserve some sense of historical splendor and variety, by immersing oneself in the travel books of Patrick Leigh Fermor.”—Ben Downing,
The Paris Review

About the Author

Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011) was an intrepid traveler, a heroic soldier, and a writer with a unique prose style. After his stormy schooldays, followed by the walk across Europe to Constantinople that begins in A Time of Gifts (1977) and continues through Between the Woods and the Water (1986), he lived and traveled in the Balkans and the Greek Archipelago. His books Mani (1958) and Roumeli (1966) attest to his deep interest in languages and remote places. In the Second World War he joined the Irish Guards, became a liaison officer in Albania, and fought in Greece and Crete. He was awarded the DSO and OBE. He lived partly in Greece—in the house he designed with his wife, Joan, in an olive grove in the Mani—and partly in Worcestershire. He was knighted in 2004 for his services to literature and to British–Greek relations.

Jan Morris was born in 1926, is Anglo-Welsh, and lives in Wales. She has written some forty books, including the Pax Britannica trilogy about the British Empire; studies of Wales, Spain, Venice, Oxford, Manhattan, Sydney, Hong Kong, and Trieste; six volumes of collected travel essays; two memoirs; two capricious biographies; and a couple of novels—but she defines her entire oeuvre as “disguised autobiography.” She is an honorary D.Litt. of the University of Wales and a Commander of the British Empire. Her memoir Conundrum is available as a New York Review Book Classic.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1590171667
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ NYRB Classics; F First Edition Thus (October 3, 2005)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781590171660
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1590171660
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.95 x 0.58 x 7.97 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 757 ratings

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4.5 out of 5 stars
757 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book delightful and well-written. They appreciate the author's knowledge of history, vivid descriptions, and intelligence. The book provides a fascinating view of Europe's varied human landscape and cultures. Readers praise the author's grasp of language and erudition.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

52 customers mention "Readability"45 positive7 negative

Customers find the book enjoyable to read. They appreciate the well-written and descriptive writing style that transports them to a real yearning for experience. The book is described as a fun, rollicking tale about a bygone era.

"...knowledgeable scholar of action, all transmuted into elegant prose of great descriptive power." Read more

"...This is the ultimate "Wish You Were Here" card, well worth the read for anyone interested in travel, history, and tales of pre-war social frivolity..." Read more

"...This remarkable book takes place in the early 1930's and traces the voyage of a young British college drop-out walking through Europe just on the..." Read more

"...writing is so ecstatic and muscular that the reader is transported to real yearning for experience, and to face that experience with eyes unclouded..." Read more

47 customers mention "Knowledge of history"47 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's knowledge of history. They find the travel stories engaging, with detailed pictures and prose. The book provides interesting accounts of the author's travel through Mitteleuropa. Readers appreciate the author's knowledge of European history and the compassion he shows during his travels.

"...This is the grandest sort of travel book, depicting geography and monuments, interwoven with history and linguistics and natural history, describing..." Read more

"`Between the Woods and the Water' is a delightful travelogue, even though the sites and sounds are long gone...." Read more

"...Did I mention this is a true story? Mr. Fermor wrote this from his contemporaneous journals and his memories of events some 30 years later...." Read more

"...This book spreads a warm ray of strength, resilience, and joy in discovery. A true delight." Read more

26 customers mention "Description"26 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's descriptions. They find the scenery beautiful, with vivid word pictures of journeys and landmarks. The author weaves the naive view of a 19-year-old with the history and grandeur of libraries and landscapes. The writing style is light and adventurous, with fun accounts of food, libraries, and adventures.

"...This is the grandest sort of travel book, depicting geography and monuments, interwoven with history and linguistics and natural history, describing..." Read more

"...innocent fumbling his way around Europe, but it's clear this is a charming, fun, intelligent, self-reliant, witty and very likely handsome young man..." Read more

"...This book, even more than A Time of Gifts, is a portrait of an enviable mind, a mind that is simultaneously open to experience and wise, or at..." Read more

"...his pen lends itself to descriptive passages of nature, and the wild beauties of this more mysterious corner of Europe comes to life because of it...." Read more

21 customers mention "Intelligence"21 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's intelligence and erudition. They find the writing engaging, thought-provoking, and uplifting. The language is described as descriptive and self-reflective.

"...parts of the wide world with fresh eyes, and a wonderfully knowledgeable scholar of action, all transmuted into elegant prose of great descriptive..." Read more

"...his way around Europe, but it's clear this is a charming, fun, intelligent, self-reliant, witty and very likely handsome young man..." Read more

"...simultaneously open to experience and wise, or at least subtle and clear-thinking, but refined by a liberal education...." Read more

"...The author seems to be an unusually well educated and outgoing young man...." Read more

14 customers mention "Europe's geography"14 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's geography of Europe. They find it fascinating and mention that it places Central Europe at the foreground. The book also explores Roman and pre-Roman times, Hungarian geography, reflections on Slavic cultures, flora and fauna, and time travel to lost natural and cultural worlds.

"...taken a great deal of advance planning and is remarkable for the number and diversity of them...." Read more

"...to east European history from Roman and pre-Roman times, Hungarian geography, reflections on Slavic languages. Esoterics I cannot appreciate...." Read more

"...absorbing bit of time-travel as well, transporting us back to lost natural and cultural worlds...." Read more

"...This book provides an indispensable perspective of Europe prior to WWII." Read more

8 customers mention "Language content"8 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's language content. They mention it covers history, sociology, linguistics, geography, zoology, and literature. Readers praise the author's grasp of English and his portrayal of Middle European History. The book contains books in French and English, with reflections on Slavic languages.

"...expelled from school, possessing uncommon charm, an astonishing facility for languages, and an interest in everything under the sun & moon...." Read more

"...The owners all seemed to have libraries, with books in French and English...." Read more

"...His grasp of the English language is sublime and his portrayal of Middle European History made me grab an Atlas to fix in my mind's eye the exact..." Read more

"...from Roman and pre-Roman times, Hungarian geography, reflections on Slavic languages. Esoterics I cannot appreciate...." Read more

6 customers mention "Personality"6 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's personality. They find it engaging with its descriptions of people, love, and exotic locales. The author is described as charismatic and outgoing, with a sense of humor.

"...to describe the natural world, the constructed world, and personalities...." Read more

"...The author seems to be an unusually well educated and outgoing young man...." Read more

"...presented in Mr. Fermor's book, as well as interesting sketches of different individuals from a variety of backgrounds and circumstances." Read more

"...and with a great sense of humour by such a charismatic story teller." Read more

12 customers mention "Content"4 positive8 negative

Customers find the book's content descriptive and absorbing. They say it's written from journals and memories when the author was much older. However, others feel the descriptions are endless, lacking substance, and disorganized.

"...But the book is also a very poignant look at a Europe of tradition, culture and low-tech living that no longer exists..." Read more

"...It resembles an idyll, the way his pen lends itself to descriptive passages of nature, and the wild beauties of this more mysterious corner of..." Read more

"...reading experience is slow going, partly because of the lengthy descriptions the author uses, but at times bring me right into the scene and..." Read more

"...transition from it past history to its ominous future, and a fading elegant culture that hardly exists anywhere now...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2011
    On the one hand, there is a young Anglo-Irish romantic expelled from school, possessing uncommon charm, an astonishing facility for languages, and an interest in everything under the sun & moon. His collaborator is an urbane & erudite autodidact with the benefit of further research and a half century of hindsight. The young man is 19-year-old Paddy Leigh Fermor, who set out to walk across Europe when Hitler had just come to power. The mentor is the older Paddy, an authentic war hero, distinguished writer, and confidante of the old and new nobility. The result is a brilliant travel memoir, of which this volume is the middle part (the first is A Time of Gifts, the third alas was not published before his death in June 2011) covering Hungary and Romania. It suggests a bildungsroman as the young man exults in the wooded hills and tributaries of the Danube, sleeping rough, befriending peasants, laborers, and the last remnants of a dying class of landed nobility. The narrative wanders, like the author, around linguistic traces mirroring the flux of various peoples across the plains of central Europe. He chronicles remnants of a vanishing way of life as he passes from one Count to another, one estate to the next, and a succession of private libraries that illuminate the historical context.
    Fermor is an exceptional literary stylist, which facet builds upon his gift for observation to describe the natural world, the constructed world, and personalities. As one traverses Transylvania today, a modern traveler realizes that the age of landed gentry is long past, as Fermor recognized when he revisited many years later. But some of the natural landscape is still evident, and some of the architecture remains. A visitor can alternate between Fermor's text and the actual object (in this case a World Heritage fortified church) and find the book still a reliable guide:
    "At the heart of each village, sturdy churches reared squat, four-sided steeples with a tough, defensive look. ... Pierced by arrow-slits, the walls rose sheer, then expanded in machicolations; and above these, rows of short uprights like squat pillars formed galleries that hoisted pyramids of steeple. They were as full of purpose as bits of armour and the uprights between steeple and coping gave the triangular roofs a look of helmets with nasal pieces and eye-slits."
    Both Fermors had catholic interests, and this happy characteristic helped the younger man to find common ground with almost everybody. He camped with Roma (gypsies) and shepherds, stayed with a Habsburg Count and many others of that class, communicated by sign language with swineherds, spoke French with a housekeeper, Latin with a Franciscan monk, German with loggers, and memorably befriended a Rabbi by showing interest and a little facility in Hebrew scripture. He provided a wonderful rhyming translation of the tragic-mystic Romanian poem Mioritza.
    Besides poetry, he picked up tales of fairies, werewolves, and vampires (which, along with the historical figure Vlad Tsepesh, nurtured the invention of the Dracula story) and descântece, metrical witches' spells. He delighted another host, a famous entomologist, with a riddle on the most entomological of Shakespeare's plays ("Antennae and Coleoptera").
    This is the grandest sort of travel book, depicting geography and monuments, interwoven with history and linguistics and natural history, describing the lives of vanishing peoples, told from the perspectives both of a neophyte seeing undeservedly obscure parts of the wide world with fresh eyes, and a wonderfully knowledgeable scholar of action, all transmuted into elegant prose of great descriptive power.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2006
    `Between the Woods and the Water' is a delightful travelogue, even though the sites and sounds are long gone. Fermor paints a picture of the life every young man wants to lead - well-funded itinerant travel, nearly effortless sociability, and a seemingly endless nightlife. This is the ultimate "Wish You Were Here" card, well worth the read for anyone interested in travel, history, and tales of pre-war social frivolity in Eastern Europe.

    The narrative structure took me by surprise. Almost every region receives a minor academic treatment prior to Fermor's personal tales: history, language, architecture, nature, fun and games, repeat. I found myself skimming past descriptions of birds and trees, but fascinated by the author's insights into the interplay of geography, language development, and regional history. And, of course, it is impossible not to be won over by the author's late nights, fleeting loves, and brief stays with forgotten royalty.

    My father often told me that `On the Road' had a profound effect on him as a youth. `Between the Woods and the Water' has a similar effect on me, only later in life. After the reading the story I was offered a brief trip to Hungary which I could not pass up. Far from Fermor's experience, I was greeted with mindless business meetings, post-communism industrial architecture, a robbery, and small-scale street riots. In the end, my disappointment with reality deepened my appreciation of the book - a memorializing tale of a geography and way of life that no longer exists.
    10 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2014
    I wish I could remember who recommended this book to me so I could give him/her a Huge Kiss right on the mouth! This remarkable book takes place in the early 1930's and traces the voyage of a young British college drop-out walking through Europe just on the cusp of the rise of Nazism in Germany. Did I mention this is a true story? Mr. Fermor wrote this from his contemporaneous journals and his memories of events some 30 years later. It is lyrical. It is fun. It traces a geography of a time and place that has been lost to us through war. It describes people who the reader knows are doomed, but of course the young man meeting these people, sharing stories, food, lodging, misadventures cannot know any of this at the time making this journey so much more poignant.
    Our hero presents himself as a wide-eyed innocent fumbling his way around Europe, but it's clear this is a charming, fun, intelligent, self-reliant, witty and very likely handsome young man (there are no pictures). His intense interest in every location and encounter is infectious.
    This is not a slam-bang, wild adventure book. It could be described as whimsical if it weren't for the sly interjections of the older writer adding commentary and color to his younger self's day to day journal entries. I can't recommend this book enough, but I couldn't really say who would enjoy it most: travelogue lovers, history junkies... I really don't know, but if you get a chance to read this book, grab it.
    This the 2nd volume of a trilogy. The first book, A TIME OF GIFTS, is also remarkable. I haven't read the 3rd book yet, but I can't wait!
    6 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Mary
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great travel narrative
    Reviewed in Germany on November 18, 2024
    I love Patrick Leigh Fermor’s writing and stories!
  • Carol Irene
    5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful writing, fascinating history, insights into many nations and their cultures
    Reviewed in Canada on December 14, 2019
    The best travel writer in the past 50 years. Fascinating tour of Europe at a critical time in history, the late 1930's.
  • Birgitta Al-Issa
    5.0 out of 5 stars A very charming story of an actual journey made by a very young man in Europe of the early thirties.
    Reviewed in Spain on May 31, 2016
    A very charming tale of a young man with endless curiosity and adaptability, travelling in a world which no longer exists.
  • Sally Walker
    5.0 out of 5 stars Simply superb
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 25, 2014
    The sequel to A Time For Gifts recounts Leigh Fermour's walk across Hungary and Rumania, starting at precisely the point that his first book finished on the bridge at Esztergom on the Hungarian border. (A Time For Gifts told of the author's journey on foot from the Hook of Holland to Esztergom; a journey undertaken when he was just eighteen and nineteen years old, undertaken in 1933 - 1934. His objective was to walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople, as it was then known). For those who have not yet read A Time For Gifts I strongly urge you to do so before beginning this book. Whilst it is not essential to read it, it will put this walk into context.

    Leigh Fermor wrote this book some fifty years following the end of his journey; it was published in 1986. So it is a much older and wiser man looking back at and writing about his journey. I believe this adds much to this book.

    This leg of his journey is dominated by him hopping from one gentleman's mansion to another, with a few open air sleeps, (or sojourns in rural inns) either alone in the landscape or with gypsies and peasant shepherd families. Amongst the landed gentry Leigh Fermour was passed somewhat like a parcel from one wealthy family to another. He says himself that staying in such places is not what he originally intended, rather he expected to live more the life of a nomadic tramp, however he did not regret getting caught up in the lives of Hungarian and Rumanian minor aristocracy because within a matter of just a few years, with the outbreak of WW2, their way of life and indeed many of them themselves, were completely erased. This can only add poignancy to your reading of this book.

    Another attraction is Leigh Fermour's youth at the time that he walked through these countries; the fact that he was essentially care free. This feeling I found infectious and slid off the pages into my inner being and made me remember parts of my own younger carefree days.

    As with A Time For Gifts what absolutely makes this book is its superb, mellifluous and intelligent writing. The author's intelligence shines through every page. This is so much more than a journal, a day-by-day account of his journey. He describes so well the landscapes that he passes through; the people that he meets; and the architecture of the towns and cities he walks to. Much stimulates in him wide ranging thoughts and perceptions. Too you will learn much of European history by reading this book.

    I can't recommend this book enough.
  • A.Savo.
    5.0 out of 5 stars La belleza di un viaggio a piedi nel centro dell'europa.
    Reviewed in Italy on October 16, 2014
    Leggendo il libro ti trovi a fianco del narratore, vedi i luoghi con i suoi occhi e vivi le sue sensazioni che la sua prosa riesce a trasmetteti . Fermor può considerarsi uno dei più grandi scrittori di viaggi.