''Between the Woods and the Water'' is a

travel book The genre of travel literature encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs. One early travel memoirist in Western literature was Pausanias, a Greek geographer of the 2nd century CE. In the early modern period ...

by British author

Patrick Leigh Fermor Sir Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor (11 February 1915 – 10 June 2011) was an English writer, scholar, soldier and polyglot. He played a prominent role in the Cretan resistance during the Second World War, and was widely seen as Britain's great ...

, the second in a series of three books narrating the author's journey on foot across Europe from the

Hook of Holland Hook of Holland ( nl, Hoek van Holland, ) is a town in the southwestern corner of Holland, hence the name; ''hoek'' means "corner" and was the word in use before the word ''kaap'' – "cape", from Portuguese ''cabo'' – became Dutch. The English t ...

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

in 1933/34. The first book in the series, '' A Time of Gifts'', recounts Leigh Fermor's journey as far as the

Middle Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

. ''Between the Woods and the Water'' (1986) begins with the author crossing the

Mária Valéria bridge Mária is a Hungarian and Slovak form of Maria (given name) or Mary (given name). * The name is found in the Mária Valéria Bridge between Hungary and Slovakia on the middle of the bridge named after Archduchess Marie Valerie of Austria and may ...

from Czechoslovakia into Hungary and ends when he reaches the Iron Gate, where the Danube formed the boundary between the

Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Kraljevina Jugoslavija, Краљевина Југославија; sl, Kraljevina Jugoslavija) was a state in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 191 ...

and

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

. The planned third volume of Leigh Fermor's journey to its completion in Constantinople, '' The Broken Road'', was not completed in his lifetime, but was finally published in September 2013. Many years after his travel, Leigh Fermor's diary of the Danubian leg of his journey was found in a castle in Romania and returned to him. He used it in his writing of the book, which also drew on the knowledge he had accumulated in the intervening years.

Honours

*1986: Thomas Cook Travel Book Award

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Between the Woods and the Water 1986 non-fiction books British travel books English non-fiction books