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The Amber Trail: A Journey of Discovery by Bicycle, from the Baltic Sea to the Aegean
From the Baltic to the Mediterranean there was once a trade in amber. With the opening up of Eastern Europe, Natascha Scott-Stokes and her new husband chose to bicycle their way in search of the past while experiencing the potential of a reunited Europe. For Natascha, who spent part of her childhood in what was then West Germany, it proved an especially poignant journey. Is there such a person as a European? This is just one of the questions the author tried to answer during her trip from Gdansk to Thessaloniki.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 1994
About the author
Natascha Scott-Stokes
11 books3 followersNatascha Scott-Stokes is the author of Tales from the Sharp End: A Portrait of Chile published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2024, and has been a renowned independent traveler and author for over three decades. She established herself as a pioneering traveler in 1989, when she became the first woman to travel the length of the Amazon River alone, from its Marañon headwaters in the Peruvian Andes to the Atlantic off Brazil. Her book about that journey is titled An Amazon and a Donkey.
Soon afterwards, she based herself in Guatemala, where she not only met the Quebecois father of her two sons, but also co-authored two guide books and published Chickenbus Journey: False Paradise in Guatemala.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, she was inspired to take a journey into history by bicycle, following an ancient trade route for amber through the newly accessible countries of Eastern Europe. The book about that journey is titled The Amber Trail.
Natascha Scott-Stokes emigrated from England to Chile in 2006, but her family’s connection with the country goes right back to the 19th century, when her great-great-grandfather arrived in Valparaíso in 1873, with a contract to install the first submarine telecommunications cable between Peru and Chile.
The author has a Masters in Latin American history and archaeology from London University and is a member of various professional associations, including US-based Biographers International; the Chilean Translators’ Association; and the Society of Authors in the UK. She has four travel books and a biography to her name and has also co-authored a number of travel guides. The biography is of the pioneering butterfly collector and extraordinary traveler Margaret Fountaine, entitled Wild & Fearless: The Life of Margaret Fountaine.
Soon afterwards, she based herself in Guatemala, where she not only met the Quebecois father of her two sons, but also co-authored two guide books and published Chickenbus Journey: False Paradise in Guatemala.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, she was inspired to take a journey into history by bicycle, following an ancient trade route for amber through the newly accessible countries of Eastern Europe. The book about that journey is titled The Amber Trail.
Natascha Scott-Stokes emigrated from England to Chile in 2006, but her family’s connection with the country goes right back to the 19th century, when her great-great-grandfather arrived in Valparaíso in 1873, with a contract to install the first submarine telecommunications cable between Peru and Chile.
The author has a Masters in Latin American history and archaeology from London University and is a member of various professional associations, including US-based Biographers International; the Chilean Translators’ Association; and the Society of Authors in the UK. She has four travel books and a biography to her name and has also co-authored a number of travel guides. The biography is of the pioneering butterfly collector and extraordinary traveler Margaret Fountaine, entitled Wild & Fearless: The Life of Margaret Fountaine.
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April 14, 2017
The name and the premise if the book are the Amber Trail - a theoretical historic route for the transportation of amber from the Baltic Sea to the Aegean Sea. Unfortunately, the author got distracted from this, having thrown in a few pages near the beginning of the book about amber, it soon gets little more than a passing mention as she progresses through Poland and Czechoslovakia and into Hungary.
As a bicycle travel book, it also loses its way, as the author and her husband too often abandon their own cycle power for a train to cut 200km out of their trip here and there.
Right at the end of the book the author even states (P189):
I had almost forgotten about our amber trail, so much had happened to divert my attention from it over past weeks.
After which we were told about amber being favoured in Minoan culture in Crete from 2600-2000BC.
If treated as a basic travelogue, there is some general information on history and culture. There are some historic sites visited, there is discussion of politics and peoples (especially around the imminent split of Czechoslovakia, and the split of Yugoslavia, at the time of the book itself involved in an internal war), and there was the authors exploration of her own history and her relationship with her husband, whom she had only recently married.
For me, the book didn't reach the potential that it could, or should have. There are (probably) better books on amber, there are better books on history and the politics of Eastern Europe, there are better books on cycle expeditioning. There wasn't enough of any of these things in this book to rate it better than 2.5 stars, rounded down.
As a bicycle travel book, it also loses its way, as the author and her husband too often abandon their own cycle power for a train to cut 200km out of their trip here and there.
Right at the end of the book the author even states (P189):
I had almost forgotten about our amber trail, so much had happened to divert my attention from it over past weeks.
After which we were told about amber being favoured in Minoan culture in Crete from 2600-2000BC.
If treated as a basic travelogue, there is some general information on history and culture. There are some historic sites visited, there is discussion of politics and peoples (especially around the imminent split of Czechoslovakia, and the split of Yugoslavia, at the time of the book itself involved in an internal war), and there was the authors exploration of her own history and her relationship with her husband, whom she had only recently married.
For me, the book didn't reach the potential that it could, or should have. There are (probably) better books on amber, there are better books on history and the politics of Eastern Europe, there are better books on cycle expeditioning. There wasn't enough of any of these things in this book to rate it better than 2.5 stars, rounded down.
Displaying 1 of 1 review