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Walking Backwards: Grand Tours, Minor Visitations, Miraculous Journeys, and a Few Good Meals
From Istanbul to New Delhi to Boulder, Colorado, through Venice, Paris, Rome, and points between
As travellers, we are always walking backwards, forever on the verge of stepping into the unknown, never knowing what waits around the next corner.
You could be lost, forget your passport, fall ill. You could be served a bowl of food and not know whether it's animal, vegetable, or mineral. Even flushing the toilet can be an adventure.
You are a child again, innocent and hoping for the best, forced to trust strangers. Quite often this works out. Not always.Walking Backwards is a return to 10 cities and what happened there. Whether inadvertently smuggling cloth into Istanbul, reading poetry in New Delhi to a crowd expecting a world-famous pianist, or wandering endlessly through Mantua searching for a non-existent hotel on a street that's fallen off the map, Mark Frutkin is a master at rediscovering the magic at the heart of all travel.
As travellers, we are always walking backwards, forever on the verge of stepping into the unknown, never knowing what waits around the next corner.
You could be lost, forget your passport, fall ill. You could be served a bowl of food and not know whether it's animal, vegetable, or mineral. Even flushing the toilet can be an adventure.
You are a child again, innocent and hoping for the best, forced to trust strangers. Quite often this works out. Not always.Walking Backwards is a return to 10 cities and what happened there. Whether inadvertently smuggling cloth into Istanbul, reading poetry in New Delhi to a crowd expecting a world-famous pianist, or wandering endlessly through Mantua searching for a non-existent hotel on a street that's fallen off the map, Mark Frutkin is a master at rediscovering the magic at the heart of all travel.
- GenresNonfiction
208 pages, Paperback
First published May 16, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 15, 2025
Sorry, didn't enjoy this at all, and really didn't like how the author came across.
August 8, 2018
I only enjoyed the chapter where he talks about his semester abroad in italy when he was in undergrad. The rest of the chapters were not interesting at all as it was just a regurgitation of buildings and streets he encountered.
February 13, 2016
A wonderful ride-along travel memoir. Highly recommended. I lost myself in Venice.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews