Fermor traveled by foot from the Hook of Holland to Constantiople; this book is the second volume of his remembrances of that trip, starting off halfway through the journey at Budapest (where the previous volume, A Time of Gifts, left off). Oh, wait, I didn’t mention that he made this trip in 1934 when he was 18. The book is an incredibly dense package of flora and fauna, history and action, characters and settings. For someone as unfamiliar as I about this area, it provided a crash course in providing for an understanding of the region.

[Finished 9 September 1993]