Comments on: Advice please

By: CW

CW — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:45:12 +0000

Ohhh it looks wonderful Fi! Thanks

By: Fiona

Fiona — Mon, 05 May 2008 12:56:44 +0000

Just got back from a weekender in London and you’ll LOVE Daunt books - it’s a travellers bookstore and next to travel guides for each city they have books about each place. Awesome. http://www.dauntbooks.co.uk/

By: CW

CW — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:37:37 +0000

THANKS! Will start reading (and viewing).

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:19:41 +0000

I forgot - for Paris Godard’s movies A Bout de Souffle and Bande A Part exemplify the spirit of Paris.

By: Kit

Kit — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:26:00 +0000

Hi Con,
For Paris - I suggest “The Piano Shop on the Left Bank” by Thad Carhart. I can’t even play the piano, but I really enjoyed it - it just gave me the feeling of living local and “being in Paris”.

Pity you’re not swinging by Dubai/Sharjah - but it’ll be a sauna here by then! (I’ll be in Belgium and Kastellorizo over the mid year break myself!)
Cheers,
Kit

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:14:50 +0000

Seconding Before Sunset and London:The Biography. Peter Ackroyd also wrote a whole bunch of good historical novels set in London. Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin stories give a real flavour of the city between the wars, and Wings of Desire is a great Berlin-set movie (the best scene is in a library). A little obscure, but Chiang Yee’s Silent Traveller in Oxford/London are lovely books by a Chinese academic living in England back in the day.

I’d recommend all of these to anyone whether they were travelling or not.

The guidebook I use for London is the Time Out one, which is fine for the big stuff as well as the more obscure possibilities. I also suggest you pick up a copy of Time Out magazine when you arrive in London so you can check what arty stuff is going on.

By: Sam

Sam — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:12:43 +0000

Don’t know if you are particularly looking for travel books in particular, but otherwise can TOTALLY recommend Oxford and Cambridge: an uncommon history by Peter Sager - I loved this book and if you love history then I can pretty much guarantee that you will love this book too!

I also love London: the biography by Peter Ackroyd - I have both these books and would recommend either!

By: mpfl

mpfl — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:51:43 +0000

I would strongly recommend you get the Lonely Planet City Encounters books for at least Paris and Berlin. I had them during my trip overseas over Summer and found them invaluable. They only focus on the cities themselves and, as such, are small and happily fit into a back pocket. They also come with maps of the cities and schematic diagrams of the public transport.

When you go to Berlin:
- Avoid the tourist public transport pass. The normal x-day-long one is cheaper.
- See the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe.

I don’t know if you’ve sorted out accommodation for Paris and Berlin, but I can tell you where I stayed, if you’re interested.

By: CW

CW — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:38:14 +0000

Thanks Fi! Just realising I have yet to email you with details of when we will be in Nederland…

By: Fiona

Fiona — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:10:38 +0000

Not a book but a film, we attempted to follow the steps of the characters in the Before Sunset film in Paris.

I loved Adam Gopnik’s book Paris to the Moon, but Pete finds it dreadfully snotty. Personally I like to pretend that one day I too could be a highly paid writer making the difficult decision about whether live in Paris or New York
btw - I bought a Dutch Taaltraining book that I’ve hardly used, yours if you want it!