by Patrick Leigh Fermor
In the end, I found it an incomplete, lyrical and pleasant enough romp through mostly German speaking areas. Fermor writes well, though quite flowery and with a critic's eye for architecture. I skipped or my eyes glazed over probably a dozen parts. The parts I did like, I really liked. Fermor descri...
In 1933, at the age of 18, Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on an extraordinary journey by foot - from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. "A Time of Gifts" is the first volume in a trilogy recounting the trip, and in this volume the reader accompanies him as far as Hungary. It's an exceptional book....
Setting off from London to walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople at the end of 1933, Fermor dives into a land of marvels that was largely swept away by the second war, already brewing as he makes his winding way with wide-eyed wonder and zest for every new experienceHis description is unre...
Highly rated by many people, but I just couldn't get into it ... so wordy!
bookshelves: published-1977, autumn-2012, travel, nonfiction, one-penny-wonder, 3m-bookshelf-challenge, autobiography-memoir Recommended to ☯Bettie☯ by: Carey Combe Recommended for: 3Ms Read from April 03 to October 04, 2012 ----------------------Three opening quotes, this one is the title sour...
----------------------Three opening quotes, this one is the title source:For now the time of gifts is gone -O boys that grow, O snows that melt,O bathos that the years must fill -Here is dull earth to build uponUndercoated; we have reachedTwelfth Night or what you will...you willIntroductory Letter ...
In November 1933, Patrick Leigh Fermor was eighteen years old. His scholastic career having been disrupted by being expelled from school, he was studying privately in the hope of being admitted to Royal Military College Sandhurst when he realised that being a peacetime soldier held no attraction. So...
I've never read a book that makes me feel quite so uneducated, but he presents his stories so beautifully, that instead of being infuriated by a smug, didactic, self-satisfied travel writer (so often the case) I came away just wanting to learn more about him and the places/times he writes about.
This is a really wonderful armchair travel book. You cannot find better. A nineteen year old travels on foot from Rotterdam to Budapest, well actually almost to Budapest. He gets over the Slovakian border into Hungary. The next book covers his travels from Budapest to Constantinople: Between the Woo...
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