Suggested Reading for All Danube River Cruises

[Ski Mamma]

My husband and I, along with 2 dear friends, are booked on the 12-19 October "Romantic Danube" cruise traveling from Budapest to Nuremberg on board the Viking Idun. In preparation for the trip, I wanted to do some relevant reading.

When searching all available titles, I came upon this wonderful book by Andrew Eames entitled Blue River, Black Sea. In the book, published originally in 2009, Eames essentially retraces the trip taken in the 1930's, and written so eloquently about, by Patrick Leigh Fermoy. In a most entertaining fashion, Eames brings the reader up to date on life along the Danube from its source in Donaueschingen, Germany to its end as it enters the Black Sea just beyond Sulina, Romania.

Although the references to River Cruising are not very flattering to say the least, the book is an excellent read and so informative. It certainly put me even more in the mood for our long anticipated second cruise with Viking. I cannot wait to take my own journey along such an historic and incredibly diverse river. I plan to disembark from the Idun as often as I can, and without a bit of hesitation, Mr. Eames ;). I plan to see and experience as much as I possibly can!

Happy Reading Fellow Cruisers!

[HDS]

Thank you for the suggestion. I read Patrick Leigh Fermoy before our Rhine/Danube river cruise. You might also enjoy "Walking the Woods and Water" by Nick Hunt who retraced Patrick Leigh Fermoy's journey recently.

One of the best things about our recent Viking cruise on the Elbe was the reading list amongst the information we received prior to the cruise.

Good luck with your independent exploring on your next Viking cruise.

[laverendrye]

For those of you who aren't familiar with the writings of Patrick Leigh Fermor (note-not Fermoy), he set out at the age of 18 in 1933 to walk from London to Istanbul which he reached a little more than a year later. Many years later, he wrote of his journey in what was to be a triology. The first, "A Time of Gifts" (1977) takes him as far as Budapest, and the second, "Between the Woods and Water" (1986) to the Iron Gates on the Danube. He then apparently had a writer's block and was still working on the third volume when he died in 2011. After his death, his literary executors arranged for the remaining fragments to be published as "The Broken Road" (2013). These cover his travels in Romania and Bulgaria, and a visit to Mount Athos in Greece after he left Istanbul. The first two volumes have become classics and well worth reading whether or not one is travelling in those regions. He was one of the great travel writers of our time.

 

I did enjoy the Andrew Eames book--it's a bit of a romp.

 

For a good historical perspective on the countries bordering the lower Danube I would recommend Robert Kaplan's "Balkan Ghosts:A Journey through History" Although written in 1989-90 before the breakup of Yugoslavia and the collapse of the communist regimes in Bulgaria and Romania, I found it still quite relevant.

 

I haven't yet got round to reading Simon Winder's "Danubia: A Personal History of Hapsburg Europe" but hope to do so some day.

[ANSalberg]

A novel I found TOTALLY fascinating. "Eva's Cousin" by Sibylle Knauss. Its a novel [ a translation between German & English] written in the early 1990s but translated in 2002 on Eva Braun's cousin who was 20 in 1944 -and was invited [ by her cousin] to live near Munich as the war was winding down. The viewpoint of a 20 year old [ interviewed in the early 1990s as a much older lady] has all the naivety AND wisdom of a war survivor. Put out by Ballantine Books.

Anne

[rudeman]

I read Fermor's "A Time of Gifts", since we were only doing Budapest to Amsterdam. It was a good read.

 

I also read Nick Thorpe's "The Danube: A Journey Upriver from the Black Sea to the Black Forest". This would be especially valuable for any going from Budapest to the Black Sea as he spends much of the book on that section. He still covers from Budapest, upriver quite well, also. It's well-done and, clearly, more relevant from a "modern" perspective.

 

I'd recommend both books. I really enjoyed them both.

Edited September 26, 2014 by rudeman