AUTUMN WANDERERS – Andrew Barton
AUTUMN WANDERERS – Andrew Barton
AUTUMN WANDERERS by Andrew Barton
005
Autumn Wanderers is a travelogue kept during a 2-month trek, from London to Istanbul.
In it, two close friends who met in college revisit their old school & places around New England important to them, then fly to England, embarking on a European trip in the spirit of the antiquated tradition of young men going on a 'Grand Tour' to see the world.
The trip (and the book too) unintentionally followed (loosely) the trip from London to Istanbul taken by Patrick Leigh Fermor in 1933/34, written about in his later life, and published in three volumes.
During the journey, the Wanderers walk through twilit parks in London, attend a children's rugby 'match tea' in The English Countryside, stroll along the houseboat lined canals of Amsterdam, visit underground art spaces in Den Haag, see innumerable places of dreams/book/films in Paris, feel at home amongst the snow/candlelight/people of Berlin, ride trains through vast snowy landscapes past broken towns and train stations, experience the deep, hardy beauty of winter in Krakow, in glorious winter sun visit the palatial baths in Budapest, and ferrying from shore to shore of the Bosphorus, soundtracked by the call to prayer, adventure through intoxicatingly magical sites and smells of Istanbul.
Notes on the edition:
This book is our longest book yet, at over 100 pages! It includes 12 color plate images printed on a wax printer by our friends at Pine Island Press. The end of the book also includes a recipe section, marking Andrew's first published food writing after years of semi-professional cooking.
excerpts:
from THE ENGLISH COUNTRYSIDE
• i take a walk with asher up and down the roads near the village. out into the open expanses where the windmills spin. the sunset sends a heartbreaking purple glow over everything. evening falls without anyone noticing.
from AMSTERDAM:
• holiday dutch donuts, circular with dried currants inside, dipped in powdered sugar. on every street corner. we rarely make it past a stand without stopping.
from KRAKOW:
• as the train approaches a bridge in the deep darkness of Poland, all the lights suddenly shut off and we slow to a stop. we sit in the pitch for a moment, and look out into the frozen mist. we had heard it was possibly to be as cold as -20ºC. the cold starts to seep in through the cracks, since the power in the car is on pause. we feel so, so deep in the adventure.
