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A TIME OF GIFTS

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BETWEEN THE WOODS AND THE WATER

Author: Patrick Leigh Fermor

At the age of eighteen, Leigh Fermor set off from the heart of London on an epic journey—to walk to Constantinople.  The journey that he began in 1933—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.

At once a memoir of coming-of-age, an account of a journey, and a dazzling exposition of the English language, these volumes present a portrait of a continent already showing ominous signs of the holocaust to come.

A Time of Gifts is the rich and sparkling account of his adventures as far as Hungary.  Acclaimed for its sweep and intelligence, the book explores a remarkable moment in time. Hitler has just come to power but war is still ahead, as he walks through a Europe soon to be forever changed—through the Lowlands to Mitteleuropa, to Teutonic and Slav heartlands, through the baroque remains of the Holy Roman Empire, up the Rhine and down to the Danube. The opening of Between the Woods and the Water finds Leigh Fermor crossing the Danube, at the moment where the first volume 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.
$16.95 (softcover)
$15.95 (softcover)
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