Beyond the Tweed: A Tour of Scotland in 1858 by Th. Fontane

by **bernstein** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 11:37 am

Although it’s not exactly a “book on whisky”, I would like to recommend this wonderful account to everybody, who’s interested in Scottish history and culture.
Theodor Fontane (1819-1898) is actually one of my all time favourite German novelists and I just had the time to reread at leisure his travel-diary from 1858.
He describes his journey by train, boat and coach from Edinburgh to the West coast and back again. His descriptions of Edinburgh, Stirling Castle, Perth, the “Grampian Desert”, the Dalwhinnie Inn, Inverness and Culloden, the Caledonian Canal, Oban and the Isles of Staffa and Iona, Loch Lomond and Glasgow are still very informative and amusing.
And he knows about whisky and its impact on Scottish culture…

by **MGillespie** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 1:58 pm

Bernie, he wrote it in English, right?

By the way...gang, Bernie should go Gold sometime in February! Good work!

Mark

by **bernstein** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 2:54 pm

MGillespie wrote:Bernie, he wrote it in English, right?

Mark, I'm afraid, he did what he could do best and wrote it in German.
But rescue's on the way - it's published as a paperback edition in English by libris books (ISBN: 1870352955).
You might as well get it via amazon.com for $29.95 - hey, that’s little more than 1 JWB…

by **MGillespie** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 3:02 pm

An English translation of a German writing about Scotland...this should be interesting!

Mark