Alumni Travel Reading: The Danube

In this volume, Fermor records his epic foot journey across Europe begun in his first account, A Time of Gifts. Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on in 1933 to cross Europe on foot with an emergency allowance of one pound a day. Undertaken as the storms of war gathered, Fermor provides a background for the events that were beginning to unfold in Central Europe. The present volume ends as Fermor approaches the Iron Gates, the division between the Carpathian mountains and the Balkans. The final volume of the three part travel saga is entitled The Broken Road (The Iron Gates to Mt. Athos).

An entertaining and informative collection of geographical, historical, political, and economic facts about the many lands along the Danube, Beattie’s work is an amalgamation of travel guide and travel essay that will delight and inform travelers to the Danubian regions.

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A collection of recipes and cultural knowledge from countries along the Danube. In addition to photos of the prepared foods, the book also offers photos and maps of the geographic locations from where the recipes originate.

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The author recounts his present and past travels through his native Poland as well as the countries of Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Albania, Moldova, and Ukraine.

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A classic and an international bestseller, Danube is a poignant and enjoyable introduction to the intellectual and literary culture of central Europe. Translated from the original Italian, Magris follows the river from the Black Forest to the Black Sea, reflecting on the history of the peoples who have inhabited its banks.

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This novel by Polish author Miłoszewski won the 2007 prize for best Polish crime novel. It is the first in a series of novels featuring prosecutor Teodor Szacki. The second volume A Grain of Truth (2012) was recently released and will be followed shortly by a third.

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A very beautiful evocation of longing for the Danube (Habsburg) Monarchy.

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An account of the Bondini-Guardasoni opera company that flourished in Prague and Warsaw (with summer seasons in Leipzig) during the last decades of the 18th Century. The company was particularly attached to Mozart’s operas, both during his lifetime and after his death.

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Looking at contemporary times, this collection of essays focuses on the importance of traditional and popular musics in peasant communities and urban centers in Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, the former Yugoslavia, Macedonia, and Bulgaria during the decades leading up to and just after the fall of the Soviet Union.

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The Danuber rises amidst the wooded hills of Germany's Black Forest, it touches or winds its way through ten countries and four capital cities before emptying into the Black Sea through a vast delta whose silt-filled channels spread across eastern Romania. Andrew Beattie explores the turbulent past and vibrant present of the landscape through which the Danube flows, where the enduring legacies of historical regimes from the Romans to the Nazis have all left their mark. (From the publisher)

Nick Thorpe embarks on an inspiring year-long journey that leads to a new perspective on present day Europe.