The Opening Country

In this journey of discovery, John Micklewright travels the slow way, on foot, on paths, tracks and byways from the Channel to the Alps from the coast of Normandy to the flanks of Mont Blanc. The Opening Country is a beautifully written account of his progress through the French countryside, an evocative patchwork of landscape, nature, history, literature, film, and drawing on his fathers diaries that stretch back to the 1930s of memoir. Always curious, absorbing all around him, ready on a whim to divert from his chosen route as he heads unhurriedly southwards. The natural world unfolds as spring turns to summer with surprises of bird song and butterflies, against a constant background of reminders of the economic and social story of rural France and of wars past. The result is an engrossing record of a classic long-distance walk through Britains nearest continental neighbour. The Opening Country is a book to fire the imagination a call to travel slowly, to open eyes and ears, to discover and explore.