Rapid Fire Europe: City Hopping in 22 Western European Countries by Jason Smart
Dates - 28th December - 12 Jan 2019
Book Number of 2019 - 2 of 52
Synposis -
When Jason Smart decides he wants to visit Western Europe, the main obstacle in his path is the number of countries it contains. From Scandinavia in the north to the sweltering Mediterranean nations of the south, Western Europe contains over twenty different nations, and so he realises that the only way to see as many of them as possible is to hop, skip and jump between them. One day here, a couple of days there: rapid fire stays in one city after another. Along the way, Smart battles with a nun in the Vatican, gets lost in a tunnel in Luxembourg, is almost run over by a tram in Lisbon and meets Jesus in a hotel in Madrid. He witnesses the wealth of Monaco, the mountainous beauty of Liechtenstein, the neon of Amsterdam’s red light district and the place witches once gathered in Stockholm. Rapid Fire Europe is a travelogue through twenty-two of the most beautiful cities in Western Europe.
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My thoughts
Jason Smart’s writing is more functional that poetic. However he does give a sense of the places he is visiting without having a classic turn of phrase at his disposal. Saying that this is still an enjoyable enough book
Would I recommend it - Yes, but only once you have finished Bill Bryson and Tim Moore’s travel books
