What do you think?
Rate this book
The Wrong Way for a Pizza
Author and journalist Brian Mooney was winding down after walking 1,300 miles from Coggeshall to Rome when a friend made a teasing comment: -In the old days pilgrims didn't have the luxury of flying back. They walked home!-
Two years later, Brian rose to the challenge. He packed his rucksack, laced up his walking-boots and set off to make the journey in reverse. The Wrong Way for a Pizza is the account of his ten-week walk from the banks of the Tiber to the banks of the Blackwater - a mirror-image of A Long Way for a Pizza, the book he wrote after he walked to Rome in 2010.
The author keeps bumping into the ghosts of his outward journey. He gets used to being told by Rome-bound pilgrims that he is walking backwards, and, with the sun behind him lighting up the Tuscan landscape, he revels in different vistas and new horizons. Varying the route from his outward journey, he crosses the Alps over a high pass from Cervinia to Zermatt and makes his way across the Jura to the Doubs, and then follows the Burgundy Canal to the Yonne and Seine, and on to Paris. After a fast march to Calais and a ferry to Dover, his arrival in Canterbury is greeted by a wall of indifference, but he finds a warmer welcome in the Essex new town of Basildon, where he spends the final night of his journey - although he cannot help reflecting that Basildon is not quite the Eternal City to which he has now walked there and back.
Two years later, Brian rose to the challenge. He packed his rucksack, laced up his walking-boots and set off to make the journey in reverse. The Wrong Way for a Pizza is the account of his ten-week walk from the banks of the Tiber to the banks of the Blackwater - a mirror-image of A Long Way for a Pizza, the book he wrote after he walked to Rome in 2010.
The author keeps bumping into the ghosts of his outward journey. He gets used to being told by Rome-bound pilgrims that he is walking backwards, and, with the sun behind him lighting up the Tuscan landscape, he revels in different vistas and new horizons. Varying the route from his outward journey, he crosses the Alps over a high pass from Cervinia to Zermatt and makes his way across the Jura to the Doubs, and then follows the Burgundy Canal to the Yonne and Seine, and on to Paris. After a fast march to Calais and a ferry to Dover, his arrival in Canterbury is greeted by a wall of indifference, but he finds a warmer welcome in the Essex new town of Basildon, where he spends the final night of his journey - although he cannot help reflecting that Basildon is not quite the Eternal City to which he has now walked there and back.
220 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2013
1 person is currently reading
2 people want to read
About the author
Brian Mooney
6 booksBrian Desmond Francis Mooney is an Oxford history graduate who served as a correspondent worldwide for Reuters. He gained a Pulitzer candidacy and an American Press Club award for his coverage of the Solidarity Revolution. He left Reuters in 2000 and subsequently worked in international public relations. He now divides his time between homes in Essex and the City of London, where he is an elected Councilman.
Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
See also Boston Globe journalist Brian C. Mooney
Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
See also Boston Globe journalist Brian C. Mooney
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 8, 2015
I am sure this journey was very interesting to the author, especially as he had previously done the walk in the opposite direction and this return home two years later was "the wrong way". However, despite my enjoyment of similar walking journals my interest was not captured by this one. I stuck with it to page 78 and by then it was clear that it wasn't going to improve so I gave up.
Displaying 1 of 1 review