Cynthia Peña's Reviews > Neither here Nor there: Travels in Europe

"Hugely funny (not snigger-snigger funny, but great-big-belly-laugh-till-you-cry-funny" - Daily Telegraph.

Hmmm... I think that review is a trifle misleading falsehood. Sure, some parts were funny, but it wasn't the sort to make your belly hurt and make you cry.

I can sum up the book with this: Mr. Bryson goes from one country to another and:

1. Finds himself a hotel. Always expensive. So he ends up complaining.
2. Finds a restaurant/bar. Finds it expensive and/or food is terrible. So he ends up complaining.
3. Walks around the city. Always finds flaws here and there. So he again ends up complaining.
4. Finds himself in a crowded train station, and again complains about the long queues.

In the book's 22 chapters, that was almost always the scene. Not one part of the book gave me the sense of excitement; which I believe it should have! It is a book about traveling anyway... in Europe!!

What Bill Bryson did was not traveling at all. He lacked the whole sense of it. Traveling is not just about roaming around, stopping by bars, getting drunk, noticing how awfully constructed a building is, or how noisy and dirty the streets are. It is about getting into the heart of a country... id est, its culture.. its people. He missed that.