Walking the Woods and the Water

Posted on 06 July 2017 by Nick Hunt

In December 1933, an eighteen year old Patrick Leigh Fermor set out in a pair of hobnailed boots to chance and charm his way across Europe, like a tramp, a pilgrim or a wandering scholar, on foot from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople The books he later wrote about this walk, A Time of Gifts 1977 , Between the Woods and the Water 1986 and the posthumous The Broken Road 2013 , are a half remembered, half reimagined journey through cultures now extinct, landscapes irrevocably altered by the traumas of the twentieth century The brilliant bubble of his writing captures a prelapsarian world of moccasin shod peasants and castle dwelling aristocrats, preserved in perfect clarity But war, political terror and brutal social change lay on the horizon That bubble was about to burst, and the raw light of the modern world soon to come flooding in On 9th December 2011, Nick Hunt caught the ferry to the Hook of Holland to follow in his footsteps Using Fermor s books as his only travel guide he spent seven months walking his route through Holland, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey, to discover for himself what remained of hospitality, kindness to strangers, freedom, wildness, adventure, the mysterious, the unknown, the deeper currents of myth and story that still flow beneath Europe s surface I d been walking for two hundred and twenty days With the twists and turns the road had taken it was impossible to say how far two and a half thousand miles was my rough guess I d passed through eight countries and three seasons, followed two major rivers and dozens of minor ones, and crossed three mountain ranges, one of them twice I d picked up fragments of seven languages, and met people than I could remember I d walked through three books two real, one imagined I d worn one pair of boots. Best Download [ Walking the Woods and the Water ] By [ Nick Hunt ] – kino-fada.fr Eight decades ago Patrick Leigh Fermor set out to walk across Europe from the Hook of Holland to the exotic and mysterious Constantinople He was aiming to chance and charm his way across the lands, hoping to be the recipient of much human kindness This great walk also gave us three great books, A Time of Gifts, Between the Woods and the Water and The Br...I thoroughly enjoyed Patrick Leigh Fermor s original books relating to his walk from Holland to Istanbul 80 years ago It is never easy to recreate something that happened some time ago and was well received in the main Initially the book did not really grab me and the walk through Holland I found less than interesting Approaching Bavaria Nick Hunt decides to use a bicycle for a while partly because his physical fitness to walk was not good In practice the section relating to Bavaria actually I thoroughly enjoyed Patrick Leigh Fermor s original books relating to his walk from Holland to Istanbul 80 years ago It is never easy to recreate something that happened some time ago and was well received in the main Initially the book did not really grab me and the walk through Holland I foun...thoroughly enjoyed this In the footsteps of Patrick Leigh Fermor, not steps that can easily be filled, but in some ways he didn t try And of course Europe is a very different place from 70 years ago I particularly enjoyed, if that is not a paradox, his descriptions of his own physical distress He was clearer than Fermor was about the mental as well as physical challenge such a pilgrimage is Although like Fermor he seems to have been a little surprised about his own ease with his own company thoroughly enjoyed this In the footsteps of Patrick Leigh Fermor, not steps that can easily be filled, but in some ways he didn t try And of course Europe is a very different place from 70 years ago I particularly enjoyed, if that is not a paradox, his descriptions of his own physical distress He was clearer than Fermor was about the mental as well as physical challenge such a pilgrimage is Although like Fermor he seems to have been a little surprised about his own ease with h...Great book for the armchair traveller, and I really admire Hunt and the hundreds of miles he walked from Rotterdam to Istanbul Although he was walking in Fermor s footsteps, this was very much Hunt s walk and experiences, and he never l...Nick Hunt does credit to the memory of Patrick Leigh Fermor, in what I hope is to be his first of many travel books Following in Paddy s path from the Hook of Holland, across Europe to Istanbul following the Danube river much of the way, Hunt has vividly captured the current culture of Europe as PLF did the dying of the old feudal regime in the years leading up to WWII and Communism What I appreciated so much about Walking is that Nick Hunt wrote his own book from his own experiences, refere Nick Hunt does credit to the memory of Patrick Leigh Fermor, in what I hope is to be his first of many travel books Following in Paddy s path from the Hook of Holland, across Europe to Istanbul following the Danube river much of the way, Hunt has vividly captured the current culture of Europe as PLF did the dying of the old feudal regime in the years leading up to WWII and Communism What I appreciated so much about Walking is that Nick Hunt wrote his own book from his own experiences, referencing PLF as their journeys merged in Powerful ways such as meeting the Great Granddaughter of one of the members of the nobility with which Paddy had stayed At the same time, Hunt sheds light on PLF s wanderings by using place...Had a lot of potential but just never lived up to it Quite well written but became quite tedious much like walking across the Great Hungarian plain Author couchsurfs everywhere and gets to meet people everyday who explain the history of the place or a local story and then gets drunk stoned with them All well and good but it gets repetitive We learn nothing about the author apart from an early mention that he is relative of mountaineer John Hunt For me there seems to be a lack of drama or Had a lot of potential but just never lived up to it Quite well written but became quite tedious much like walking across t...To purchase this book is obviously to have read P L Fermor s masterpieces and to be motivated by an unhealthy curiosity of how it compares.Well, it doesn t WWW is an entirely new book about a walking adventure in an entirely different world, a bit like visiting the ruins of Pompei, except that the Vesuvius has been replaced by the incredibly evil effects of Communism for the second half of the walk and the milder effects of liberal laisser faire automobile culture in the first half.Mr To purchase this book is obviously to have read P L Fermor s masterpieces and to be motivated by an unhealthy curiosity of how it compares.Well, it doesn t WWW is an entirely new book about a walking adventure in an entirely different world, a bit like visiting the ruins of Pompei, except that the Vesuvius has been replaced by the incredibly...Nick Hunt follows in the footsteps of Patrick Leigh Fermor s famous hike across Europe in the 1930s This is one of the finest travel books I ve read, PLF would have loved it Highly recommended.Hunt s book is what a travel book should never be wishy washy Hunt doesn t quite capture the sense of adventure, so it s no roller coaster for the armchair traveler, nor achieves an informative tone despite containing historical notes here and there 50% of the book consists of landscape descriptions, which I believe can become a bit redundant and pointless I ve gone through all the book skimming ...a thing is worth doing, it s probably worth doing again, and Nick Hunt replicated Patrick Leigh Fermor s 1933 34 walk, as far as possible, in 2011 The world has changed, and the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey have all changed too since 1934 The journey changes the writer as well the pace of walking is of course far different to theusual speed of travel today, and enables him to engage with the locals in a thing is worth doing, it s probably worth doing again, and Nick Hunt replicated Patrick Leigh Fermor s 1933 34 walk, as far as possible, in 2011 The world has changed, and the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey have all changed too since 1934 The journey changes the writer as well the pace of walking is of course far different to theusual speed of travel today, and enables him to engage with the locals in a way that we casual tourists who drop in and out of hotels, pubs and restaurants will never get Some of it is depressing the relationship between Hungarians and Romanians is never going to be smooth war, Communism, industrialisation and ethnic homogenisations have reshaped and destroyed large parts of the landscape that Leigh Fermor knew, particularly the homes of the Hungarian nobles who he visited and made love to At the same time, crucially, Hunt is travelling across ...

English
06 July 2017

Nick Hunt