Travel Europe History

Your narrator for the adventure is me an American, the sort of fellow the Irish might refer to as a boyo. The times recounted are before Ireland joined the European Union, when it was the “old sod.” If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to visit relatives in Ireland, my stories will be warm and enlightening. There is something magical about visiting where, but for a generation or two, you’d be living and laughing everyday with cousins.

Zu Fuß zum Meer, die Feder im Gepäck. Eine der erstaunlichsten Reisen unserer Zeit! An einem verregneten Dezembertag macht sich der 18-jährige Patrick Leigh Fermor zu Fuß, quer durch Europa, nach Konstantinopel auf. In dem Jahr, in dem Hitler an die Macht kommt, wandert der vielseitig interessierte junge Mann durch Wiesen und Wälder, verschneite Städte und die Salons der guten Gesellschaft. Er macht Bekanntschaft mit Handwerkern, Arbeitern und Direktoren, er nächtigt in ärmlichen Hospizen, Scheunen und auf märchenhaften Schlössern.

Das neue Hörbuch von Katja Eichinger über den Sehnsuchtsort Côte d'Azur. Ultramarinblaues Meer, weiße Strandpromenaden, Palmen, Mimosen und ein einzigartiges Licht: die Côte d'Azur. Nirgends sonst ist die Dichte der Geschichten und der Künstlerinnen und Künstler, die sie verewigt haben, höher. Nietzsche war hier, Coco Chanel, Marlene Dietrich, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, James Baldwin und die Rolling Stones. Ein Ort, an dem Extreme und Exzess, die Yachten und Bauten der Superreichen, die Glitterati und Easyjet-Touristen vor der unbeeindruckt bezaubernden Natur aufeinandertreffen.

In 1921, Britain's most illustrious highway, the Great North Road, ceased to exist – on paper at least. Stretching from London to Edinburgh, the old road was largely replaced by the A1 as the era of the motor car took hold. A hundred years later, journalist and cyclist Steve Silk embraces the anniversary as the perfect excuse to set off on an adventure across 11 days and 400 miles. Travelling by bike at a stately 14 miles per hour, he heads north, searching out milestones and memories, coaching inns and coffee shops.

When Ben Coates injures his leg and needs to rebuild his strength by walking, he finds himself presented with an exciting opportunity: to rediscover the city he has been working in for over a decade, at a slower pace. He devises ten walks, each demonstrating a different chapter of Amsterdam's history, from its humble beginnings in the early 1200s as a small fishing community through two Golden Ages, fueled by the growth of the Dutch colonial empire, two world wars, and countless reinventions.

Through the stories of fellow travelers, Greene explores the challenges and opportunities facing the new Russia: a nation that boasts open elections and newfound prosperity yet still continues to endure oppression, corruption, and stark inequality. Set against the wintery landscape of Siberia, Greene’s lively travel narrative offers a glimpse into the soul of 20th century Russia: how its people remember their history and look forward to the future.

In 2009 musician Franz Nicolay left his job in the Hold Steady, aka the world's greatest bar band. Over the next five years, he crossed the world with a guitar in one hand, a banjo in the other, and an accordion on his back, playing the anarcho-leftist squats and DIY spaces of the punk rock diaspora. He met Polish artists nostalgic for their revolutionary days, Mongolian neo-Nazis in full SS regalia, and a gay expat in Ulaanbaatar who needed an armed escort between his home and his job.

1968 reist der Autor Franz Fühmann von Ost-Berlin nach Budapest. Hinter ihm liegen die Überwindung seiner Alkoholsucht und die Desillusionierung durch den Einmarsch der Truppen des Warschauer Paktes in Prag. Schreibend beginnt er, sein Handeln innerhalb der sozialistischen Gesellschaft, in der er lebt, zu reflektieren, und er schafft es, die Krise als Ausgangspunkt für einen Neuanfang zu nutzen.

Every journey has its stories. Beginning with Enid Blyton and childhood in the Isle of Purbeck, Peter Fiennes embarks on a unique exploration of Britain. He follows in the footsteps of some our greatest writers, tracing the paths recorded in their books, journals and diaries, and looks for the country they knew. How much has time changed us? And has it been for better, or worse? Are we trapped in the past?

“Soviet space program Interkosmos, the Iron Curtain, General Hermaszewski, and a frenzied race between world powers” - a fascinating reportage which unveils the circumstances of the Polish flight into space in June 1978. An excellent story telling that heroism cannot be planned, it can only happen on its own.

By turns exciting, provocative, and sincere, Hitching for Hope: A Journey into the Heart and Soul of Ireland is the tale of a pilgrimage both deeply personal and explicitly political. McKiernan embarks without an itinerary, not knowing with whom he may speak, what he may hear, or where he may sleep each night. As he reflects on his past, faces his fears, and listens to the struggles, hopes, and dreams of Ireland’s people, he excavates a human resilience often obscured by the media.

À la fin du XVIIIe siècle ils étaient trois à rêver, avec leur œuvre, d’atteindre les sommets, d'atteindre le firmament : Mozart et sa « Petite musique de nuit », les frères Montgolfier et leur ballon. Hélas la petite sonate ne fut jouée qu’après la mort de l’auteur, et c’est Pilâtre de Rozier qui s’envola à la place des deux frères!

The Tour of Flanders is Belgium's most brutal day in the saddle. The bike-crazed Flemish don't just send riders over cobblestone roads. Nor are they content to break the racers' legs with nearly 20 steep hills. No, the worst of all cycling worlds meet in Flanders with narrow, vertical roads paved with slippery, dangerous cobbles. The hills are so steep they are called "muurs", or walls, and they come one after another, for hours, until the riders are shattered with exhaustion. The Tour of Flanders is so fiendishly difficult that the man who wins it earns everlasting fame.

Editor Eleanor Brown presents a collection of personal essays from 18 different authors about their experiences in the City of Light.

Lost in time for generations, the story of a 19th-century English gentleman in British India - a family mystery of love found and loyalties abandoned, finally brought to light. In 1841, 20-year-old Nigel Halleck set out for Calcutta as a clerk in the East India Company. He went on to serve in the colonial administration for eight years before abruptly leaving the company under a cloud and disappearing in the mountain kingdom of Nepal, never to be heard from again.

When Jessa Crispin was 30, she burned her settled Chicago life to the ground and took off for Berlin with a pair of suitcases and no plan beyond leaving. Half a decade later, she's still on the road, in search not so much of a home as of understanding, a way of being in the world that demands neither constant struggle nor complete surrender.

In France, Johnson is like an alien from another planet. Everything is strange to him. His goal is to speak French without going to prison, drive without being squashed like a bug, dance the tango without losing his marriage, and belt out a tune with a world-class jazz combo without being booed off the stage. Repeatedly, the author fearlessly steps into harm's way. He joins a summer acting troop and witnesses the French version of sexual liberation.

Ci troveremo a passeggiare nella Parigi del Seicento, accompagnati da guide d'eccezione, “persone di mondo” colte ma non dotte, educate a conversare in società con straordinaria naturalezza, garbo e finezza. Leggerle è quasi come ascoltarle, perché sapevano mettere sulla carta il loro parlato senza appannarlo, dentro memorie, lettere, libelli. I tre accompagnatori principali sono Retz, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, e Mazzarino.

An impossible quest. An epic love story. A mesmerizing debut. In 1924, the English mountaineer Ashley Walsingham dies attempting to summit Mount Everest, leaving his fortune to his long-lost lover, Imogen Soames-Andersson—whom he has not seen in seven years. Ashley’s attorneys search in vain...

Fourteen centuries ago, Irish saints brought the Word of God to the Hebrides and Scotland's Atlantic shore. These "white martyrs" sought solitude, remoteness, even harshness, in places apart from the world where they could fast, pray, and move closer to an understanding of God: places where they could see angels. Columba, who founded the famous monastery at Iona, was the most well-known of these courageous men who rowed their curraghs towards danger and uncertainty in a pagan land, but the many others are now largely forgotten by history.