A lighthearted account of a four-hundred-mile walk across France explains why the author left a prestigious position in banking to enjoy life to its fullest and captures the delights, agonies, and rewards of the journey. 15,000 first printing.
At age 45, Miles Morland left his high-paying job at the London office of a Wall Street firm to walk, with his wife, across France. Morland's memoir of his and his wife's journey is the irresistible story of an adventure, a marriage, and a dream come true. "For anyone who ever fantasized about walking away from the rat race".--Publishers Weekly
A walker’s guide to Paris, taking us through its past, present and possible futures Eric Hazan, author of the acclaimed Invention of Paris, takes the reader on a walk from Ivry to Saint-Denis, roughly following the meridian that divides Paris into east and west, and passing such familiar landmarks as the Luxembourg Gardens, the Pompidou Centre, the Gare du Nord and Montmartre, as well as forgotten alleyways and arcades. Weaving historical anecdotes, geographical observations, and literary references, Hazan’s walk guides us through an unknown Paris. With the aid of maps, he delineates the most fascinating and forgotten parts of the city’s past and present. Planning and modernization have accelerated the erasure of its revolutionary history, yet through walking and observation, Hazan shows how we can regain our knowledge of the city of Robespierre, the Commune, Sartre, and the May ’68 uprising. Drawing on his own life story, as surgeon, publisher and social critic, Hazan vividly illustrates the interplay and concord between a city and the personality it forms.
At the age of 45 Miles Morland resigned from his highly paid job as head of the UK division of a major American bank and went for a walk with his wife in France. Neither of them was used to walking further than the distance between a restaurant and a waiting taxi. They walked from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 350 miles through the foothills of the Pyrenees, staying in small country inns and occasionally sleeping out along the way. The author describes the pleasures and agonies of the walk and reflects frequently and with relief on the life from which he has escaped. The pressures of his former life had affected him in many ways, the repercussions including divorce and then remarriage to his former wife Guislaine.
It is possible to walk from any village in France to another without ever boarding a car, train, or bus. This is a guide to the more than 110,000 miles of well-marked and maintained off-road footpaths and to the gracious accommodations, wonderful restaurants, and sights along the way. Vineyards, caves, chateaux, and other beauties of the countryside are highlighted in colour photos. The book provides explanations of trail markers, equipment advice, packing tips, and a pocket-sized English-French walker's vocabulary.
A walking journey through France’s vast interior becomes a meditation on both personal recovery and the role of history in the present—more than 425,000 copies sold in France After a free-climbing accident lands him in a coma and a hospital for four months, the French writer Sylvain Tesson makes a promise to himself: if he’s ever able to walk again, he will traverse the entire country of France on foot. Part literary adventure, part philosophical reflection on our contemporary consumer culture, On the Wandering Paths takes us deep into the heart of what Tesson terms France’s “hyperrural” zones. Tracing the obscure paths peasants once followed throughout the countryside, Tesson embarks on a three-month journey of solitude and personal contemplation as he walks along vast stretches of mountain ranges and rivers, encountering ancient Roman stone bridges and walkways, the French Foreign Legion, pagan prayer sites, Provençal villages, and the majestic Mont-Saint-Michel. Connecting deeply with the places he visits, his experiences inspire reflection on the essential need to disengage from the digital and immerse oneself in natural beauty. Rich with humor, historical insight, and literary power, On the Wandering Paths is both a meditation on the act of recovery and a potent recognition of the traces of our past in the present. Asking us to reassess our values and our relationship to the land, Tesson’s exquisite chronicle through landscapes that continue to resist urbanization and technology is a thoughtful—and thought-provoking—glimpse into a poet’s adventurous life. Les Chemins de Pierre, a film based on the book starring Jean Dujardin, is due to release in 2022.
A full-color traveler's volume outlines four walking tours through some of its most significant historical areas, offering insight into how specific regions and buildings have changed, in a resource that provides specific coverage of the work of Georges-Eugne Haussmann. Original.
A New York Times best summer travel book recommendation A nonfiction debut about an American’s solo, month-long, 400-mile walk from Lake Geneva to Nice. In the summer of 2015, Jonathan Arlan was nearing thirty. Restless, bored, and daydreaming of adventure, he comes across an image on the Internet one day: a map of the southeast corner of France with a single red line snaking south from Lake Geneva, through the jagged brown and white peaks of the Alps to the Mediterranean sea—a route more than four hundred miles long. He decides then and there to walk the whole trail solo. Lacking any outdoor experience, completely ignorant of mountains, sorely out of shape, and fighting last-minute nerves and bad weather, things get off to a rocky start. But Arlan eventually finds his mountain legs—along with a staggering variety of aches and pains—as he tramps a narrow thread of grass, dirt, and rock between cloud-collared, ice-capped peaks in the High Alps, through ancient hamlets built into hillsides, across sheep-dotted mountain pastures, and over countless cols on his way to the sea. In time, this simple, repetitive act of walking for hours each day in the remote beauty of the mountains becomes as exhilarating as it is exhausting. Mountain Lines is the stirring account of a month-long journey on foot through the French Alps and a passionate and intimate book laced with humor, wonder, and curiosity. In the tradition of trekking classics like A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, The Snow Leopard, and Tracks, the book is a meditation on movement, solitude, adventure, and the magnetic power of the natural world.