Fermor, Patrick Leigh "Between the Woods and the Water"

Fermor, Patrick Leigh "Between the Woods and the Water: On Foot to Constantinople from the Hook of Holland" - 1986

This travel book was recommended to me by a book club member, she loved it and since we often like the same books, I was willing to read it. This is the second part in a trilogy, the first one being "A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople: from the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube", the last one "The Broken Road: From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos".  Maybe I should have read the first one first as that has the better reviews but this is the book that was lent to me with the remark, it doesn't matter in which order you read them.

I love travel books and this trip from Hungary through Romania to the Bulgarian border seemed interesting. Written before the faschists took over in Europe, it was alos an interesting time-frame.

However, I did not care much for the writing. It seemed more like the diary of a teenager written for himself, and that's probably what it was since the author was only 18 when he made this journey.

I liked the historical parts that he probably added later but as a travel book, it was far too boring. He does mention the people he meets and tells a few stories but one does not have the feeling that we are there, that we travel with him.

He might have improved in later years as he received a knighthood but I doubt I will pick up one of his books soon again.

From the back cover:

"The acclaimed travel writer's youthful journey - as an 18-year-old - across 1930s Europe by foot began in A Time of Gifts, which covered the author's exacting journey from the Lowlands as far as Hungary. Picking up from the very spot on a bridge across the Danube where his readers last saw him, we travel on with him across the great Hungarian Plain on horseback, and over the Romanian border to Transylvania. The trip was an exploration of a continent which was already showing signs of the holocaust which was to come. Although frequently praised for his lyrical writing, Fermor's account also provides a coherent understanding of the dramatic events then unfolding in Middle Europe. But the delight remains, 20 years after first publication, in travelling with him in his picaresque journey past remote castles, mountain villages, monasteries and towering ranges."