Between the Woods and the Water (New York Review Books Classics) Book

The journey that Patrick Leigh Fermor began in 1933 at the age of eighteen?to cross Europe on foot with an ?emergency? allowance of a 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 context for unfolding events in Central Europe, this journey has captivated generations. Between the Woods and the Water has won as many prestigious awards as its predecessor. The opening of Between the Woods and the Water finds Leigh Fermor crossing the Danube, at the moment where his first volume?A Time of Gifts?left off. He takes the reader with him downriver to Budapest, then on horseback across the Great Hungarian Plain and over the Rumanian 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 dividing the Carpathian mountains and the Balkans where, for now, the account ends.Read More