In 1933, the 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. The books he later wrote about this walk, A Time of Gifts, Between the Woods and the Water, and the posthumous The Broken Road are a half-remembered, half-reimagined journey through cultures now extinct, landscapes irrevocably altered by the traumas of the twentieth century. Aged eighteen, Nick Hunt read A Time of Gifts and dreamed of following in Fermor's footsteps.
In 2011 he began his own great trudge - on foot all the way to Istanbul. He walked across Europe through eight countries, following two major rivers and crossing three mountain ranges. Using Fermor's books as his only travel guide, he trekked some 2,500 miles through Holland, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. His aim? To have an old-fashioned adventure. To slow down and linger in a world where we pass by so much, so fast. 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.
'An old-fashioned adventure' Wall Street Journal
FINALIST FOR THE STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK AWARD
In 1933, the 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'. The books he later wrote about this walk are journeys through cultures now extinct, landscapes irrevocably altered by the twentieth century.
As a young man, Nick Hunt read A Time of Gifts and dreamed of following in Fermor's footsteps. Using Paddy's books as his only travel guide, he began his own 'great trudge' - on foot all the way to Istanbul, trekking some 2,500 miles across Europe through eight countries, following two major rivers and crossing three mountain ranges.
His aim? To slow down and linger in a world where we pass by so much, so fast. To discover for himself what remained of hospitality, kindness to strangers, freedom, wildness, the mysterious, the deeper currents of myth and story that still flow beneath Europe's surface.
'A moving and profoundly honest book. How touched and fascinated [Fermor] would have been to read it' Artemis Cooper
'Vivid and hard-won' Giles Foden
A brave achievement. Hunt's admiration for his celebrated predecessor is clear, and his curiosity is compelling.
