´In many ways, travel wasa release for me. Ittook me away from a life that had gone a little ´´off plan´´.
2,000 km, mostly by train from Lithuania to Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and finally Croatia. Passionate about sports and their material memories - such as the former Olympic Village in Sarajevo - From the Baltic to the Balkans by Stuart McMillan is an informative dense journey in a part of the world where people may travel but not necessarily see the people and history.
I´ve personally been in almost the places featured in the book - except Bosnia and Herzegovina which is on my ´bucket list´ - some of them more than once - like Hungary - and I was pleased to discover features of sights that I know with the eyes and the mind. The chapter about Budapest for instance was so well written that I could see the places I used to know unfolding in the front of my eyes.
The stops of the journey are mostly the popular ones: Dubrovnik, Sarajevo, Belgrad, Budapest, Vilnius but was interesting to notice the new angles - there were a few - and the personal observations and local feeling about places and people.
For anyone planning some consistent travel in those parts of the world, From the Baltic to the Balkans is a good start as it also includes some information about planning and useful observations about money, price differences and some tasty local foods. It also has some sport references which make the book unique in terms of information, especially for sports fans and travellers and some tips regarding the best viewpoints from where you can try to shoot almost as beautiful panorama pictures as the author´s displays in the book (I´ve read the book on Kindle and the quality was not so great though).
Rating: 4 stars
Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review
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