The Broken Road: Travels from Bulgaria to Mount Athos by Patrick Leigh FermorLike many others I'm sure, I've waited a long time to read of the completion of the journey and am grateful to Artemis Cooper and Colin Thubron for editing this, the final part of this wonderful journal. PLF's descriptive prose is a delight and his boyish enthusiasm for people and place shines through. A glimpse of a now, long-forgotten world of Balkan and Central European kingdoms recovering from one disastrous war yet anticipating another, this account of a wandering on foot with all its range of varied emotions, embodies both youthful optimism and hints of a kind of world-weariness that belies the author's relative youth and inexperience. It is a fascinating account of a journey from the Iron Gates, through Bulgaria, Romania and back through Bulgaria again to the iconic Constantinople. PLF's subsequent wandering through the monastries of Mount Athos complete the adventure. Travel writing at its very best.
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