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Heidi's Alp: One Family's Search for Storybook Europe
One spring morning in 1985, Christina Hardyment and her four daughters set out from their Oxford home to trace the roots of stories that have captured the imaginations of generations of children worldwide.
258 pages, Paperback
First published May 18, 1987
2 people are currently reading
159 people want to read
About the author
Christina Hardyment
42 books17 followersChristina Hardyment read history at Newnham College, Cambridge, and has twice held the Alistair Horne Historians' Writing Fellowship at St. Antony's College, Oxford. She is a writer and broadcaster with wide interests, and lives in Oxford, England.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
April 2, 2025
Heidi's Alp is the story of Hardyment's trip through Europe with her four daughters, searching for the sources of their favorite continental children's books: Pinnochio, Heidi, Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales, Hans Brinker, Babar, and more. Hardyment moves fluidly through bibliomemoir, travelogue, and criticism most enjoyably. (I especially liked her descriptions of their meals. Mmmm.) I was won over immediately by the epigraphical poem, "In This Time" by Elizabeth Jennings, which is one of my favorites. The inclusion of illustrations was a nice touch. It was so refreshing to read about a family trip in a caravan that avoided the ick and exploitation of van life "family" vloggers. Their impressions of each country were charitably and humorously related, and I loved the way Hardyment wrote about Sarah, the ten-month-old who joined them with her mother for part of the trip. I felt quite attached to Bertha and her crew by the end of the book.
Along with How the Heather Looks by Joan Bodger, an American family's trip through storybook Britain, I find myself in need of a European family's tour through storybook North America: Anne Shirley's Prince Edward Island, Tasha Tudor's Vermont, the Boston of Johnny Tremain and Louisa May Alcott, Maud Hart Lovelace's Minnesota, Laura Ingalls Wilder's South Dakota, Beverly Cleary's Oregon, and everything north, south, and in between. That would really round out my Western storybook saga collection!
Along with How the Heather Looks by Joan Bodger, an American family's trip through storybook Britain, I find myself in need of a European family's tour through storybook North America: Anne Shirley's Prince Edward Island, Tasha Tudor's Vermont, the Boston of Johnny Tremain and Louisa May Alcott, Maud Hart Lovelace's Minnesota, Laura Ingalls Wilder's South Dakota, Beverly Cleary's Oregon, and everything north, south, and in between. That would really round out my Western storybook saga collection!
June 21, 2019
At first I was hesitant to read this because I thought it would be too "cutesy" for my taste. It wasn't. It is a very good travelogue. This trip through Europe took place in 1985 and the story did not seem too dated but of course there was no mention of cell phones. And the 3 little girls aged 5 to 11 had no electronic games to keep them occupied - instead they had to play games of imagination in their van during long hauls to their next destination. One of their stops was East Germany. I found these changes in the past 28 years fascinating rather than off-putting. And since the family was British, I didn't understand some of the author's references to "things back home". I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I now know much more of the fairy tales' backstories. Especially Hans Christian Andersen's tales and his life.
July 6, 2024
I picked this up at the Book Barn because it had a similar premise to How the Heather Looks (which I haven't read but look forward to reading with my children in 7th grade). In both books, a family travels around visiting sites and landscapes associated with famous authors; How the Heather Looks chronicles an American family's tour of England, and in Heidi's Alp an English family visits continental Europe.
There was a lot to charm in this book. I'm a sucker for quotidian detail, so it was fun to read about all their travel arrangements (in a camper van!) and the various campsites, restaurants, museums, and souvenir shops the family patronized. The book describes all the normal highs and lows of family life and travel—bad tempers, bad sleep, traffic, closed museums, scaffolding, things costing more than expected, various kinds of alcohol invariably consumed (seemingly in moderation) at the end of the day. But, as in most trips (and families), the good outweighs the bad, and the incredible times—hiking in the Alps and receiving hospitality from a Swiss cabin-dweller, enjoying a gondola ride in Venice, being swept up by the intrigue of the Pied Piper story in Hamelin—make the trip (and the book) worthwhile.
Written in 1987, there was also the fun of a slightly dated portrayal of pre-EU, tail-end-of Cold War travel (one of the best chapters deals with the surreal experience of travel in East Germany). And the bits about the authors, their works and biographies, were fascinating. I appreciated all the research the author-mother put into the trip—which, she frankly admits, was as much to satisfy her own curiosity and wanderlust as to enhance her children's education.
Yet despite all these points on its favor, it wasn't, overall, a charming book. In fact, I found it quite a chore to finish. I think this was mostly because it needed some pruning, a healthy dose of economy. There was too much detail about the places and travel arrangements. There were too many chapters devoted to Hans Christian Andersen: he's great and fascinating, but about half the book follows in his footsteps, and that felt like way too much. And there was definitely too much discussion of contemporary scholarship on the authors, especially psychoanalytical criticism of the fairy tales, which inevitably felt tedious and dated. (Joseph tells me that this was the heyday of psychoanalytic approaches to fairy tales, so the author probably felt she was bringing something fresh and fascinating to her original audience. To me in 2024, this type of scholarship seems misguided, distasteful, and hopelessly boring.)
Perhaps most damningly, the book lacked transcendence and metaphysical oomph. The deepest ideas boiled down to "we shouldn't shelter children from reading grim fairy tales" and "parents shouldn't be overprotective" and "adults shouldn't care so much what other people think." I can think of many books that take these ideas so much further, so the book's philosophical core (if you can even say it had one) felt mushy and lackluster.
There was a lot to charm in this book. I'm a sucker for quotidian detail, so it was fun to read about all their travel arrangements (in a camper van!) and the various campsites, restaurants, museums, and souvenir shops the family patronized. The book describes all the normal highs and lows of family life and travel—bad tempers, bad sleep, traffic, closed museums, scaffolding, things costing more than expected, various kinds of alcohol invariably consumed (seemingly in moderation) at the end of the day. But, as in most trips (and families), the good outweighs the bad, and the incredible times—hiking in the Alps and receiving hospitality from a Swiss cabin-dweller, enjoying a gondola ride in Venice, being swept up by the intrigue of the Pied Piper story in Hamelin—make the trip (and the book) worthwhile.
Written in 1987, there was also the fun of a slightly dated portrayal of pre-EU, tail-end-of Cold War travel (one of the best chapters deals with the surreal experience of travel in East Germany). And the bits about the authors, their works and biographies, were fascinating. I appreciated all the research the author-mother put into the trip—which, she frankly admits, was as much to satisfy her own curiosity and wanderlust as to enhance her children's education.
Yet despite all these points on its favor, it wasn't, overall, a charming book. In fact, I found it quite a chore to finish. I think this was mostly because it needed some pruning, a healthy dose of economy. There was too much detail about the places and travel arrangements. There were too many chapters devoted to Hans Christian Andersen: he's great and fascinating, but about half the book follows in his footsteps, and that felt like way too much. And there was definitely too much discussion of contemporary scholarship on the authors, especially psychoanalytical criticism of the fairy tales, which inevitably felt tedious and dated. (Joseph tells me that this was the heyday of psychoanalytic approaches to fairy tales, so the author probably felt she was bringing something fresh and fascinating to her original audience. To me in 2024, this type of scholarship seems misguided, distasteful, and hopelessly boring.)
Perhaps most damningly, the book lacked transcendence and metaphysical oomph. The deepest ideas boiled down to "we shouldn't shelter children from reading grim fairy tales" and "parents shouldn't be overprotective" and "adults shouldn't care so much what other people think." I can think of many books that take these ideas so much further, so the book's philosophical core (if you can even say it had one) felt mushy and lackluster.
February 11, 2015
I love this book and the author just gave me permission to read it on Forgotten Classics! Huzzah!
You heard it here first folks!
Many thanks to Gail, a good friend of the podcast, who approached the author for permission!
UPDATE
We have begun reading at Forgotten Classics. Enjoy!
You heard it here first folks!
Many thanks to Gail, a good friend of the podcast, who approached the author for permission!
UPDATE
We have begun reading at Forgotten Classics. Enjoy!
May 11, 2015
I thought the highlight was definitely the visit to the Alps. I came to adore the author's four daughters, especially Tilly.
September 15, 2020
Hardyment persuades her family to join her one summer, travelling through Europe in a camper van, chasing in the footsteps of European fairy stories. In particular her obsession with Hans Andersen sets the pace of the book. Honestly, it's an odd one. Part academic, part travel writing I confess that I found it rather uneven. I'm not a huge fan of Andersen and I thought there might be more other authors featured than there were. Because of this a lot of the book takes place in the Scandinavia and the more Germanic countries. There's nothing wrong with this but it felt a little unbalanced. The bits I enjoyed most were the forays into Italy and France and they seem the most rushed. The other oddness was how this showed its age. It was written in the Eighties and it has rather dated. Probably more so than something written a lot earlier if I'm honest. The fact, for instance, that in a cramped van with four kids (sometimes five) and two adults, there has to be room for a type writer. There is also quite a lot of drinking, which I totally understand, because if I was in a van with that many kids I too would be drinking, but there seems to also be quite a lot of driving. One presumes that someone was sober and that sober person was driving, but it doesn't always come across that way and I found myself worrying about it a lot. I know a lot about fairy stories and I don't feel I particularly learned anything new but it was interesting if not entirely satisfactory.
June 15, 2021
I loved this book. Part memoir, part travelogue, it follows the adventures of an English family on vacation through Europe, following in the footsteps of their favorite children's books: Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates, Hans Christian Andersen, Brothers Grimm, Heidi, and others. Some days are spectacular, while others disappoint. I vicariously enjoyed this journey. Highly recommended.
Read
October 19, 2019Not sure what I remember about this, donated to UUFD Oct 2019
October 31, 2025
Fun read
May 9, 2016
“The greatest travelers travel alone,” wrote John Julius Norwich, in A Taste for Travel. Maybe so. But some very fine travelers travel with families, and their books can be just as engaging.
In Heidi’s Alp, Christina Hardyment recounts the 7-week journey she took with her four daughters, ages 5 through 12, to explore the roots of European fairy tales. As they travel from their Oxford home to Holland, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and France, the author describes the adventures with the children while reflecting on the stories of Hans Brinker, The Little Mermaid, the Pied Piper, Pinocchio, William Tell, and Babar. Fairy tales these may be, but as Hardyment relates them to their authors and the cultures from which they emerged, they are fascinating for adults as well.
Because Hardyment’s husband can manage only one month off, her companion until Hamelin—where he catches up—is a friend and her baby, who add incident and bodies to the already full campervan. But her true companion on the journey is Hans Christian Andersen, who was apparently not only a complex figure and author, but also a travel addict: “To travel is to live,” he once wrote. Intrigued by this highly original artist, Hardyment probes his life and work, commenting not only on well-known stories, but also on lesser-known tales—ones I’d certainly never heard of—like the dark and eerie “The Shadow.”
Although Hardyment felt an obligation to create an “educational” trip for the children—after all, she was taking them out of school for many weeks—she was aware that dragging them to museums and churches wouldn’t really work. She balances this admirably. While they visit Tivoli and Legoland, they also take in many cultural sites and, most importantly, they are introduced to other cultures—the foods, the customs, the different ways of behaving. Their responses to what they see—as varied as their personalities—are lively and interesting.
For the family, the highlight of the journey is a chance to stay overnight in an old man’s mountain cabin in Heidi territory, where they drink milk warm from the cow (those of them who can stomach it) and even get to see the cow being milked. For me, the high point was the intriguing story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, which seems to be based on a true story of the disappearance of 130 children from the town in the 13th century—an event that, despite much historical research, no one yet really understands.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which is well-researched, literary, and entertaining, and I plan to use Hardyment’s excellent bibliography to read the best translation of Andersen’s (often poorly translated) tales and find the works too often ignored.
In Heidi’s Alp, Christina Hardyment recounts the 7-week journey she took with her four daughters, ages 5 through 12, to explore the roots of European fairy tales. As they travel from their Oxford home to Holland, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and France, the author describes the adventures with the children while reflecting on the stories of Hans Brinker, The Little Mermaid, the Pied Piper, Pinocchio, William Tell, and Babar. Fairy tales these may be, but as Hardyment relates them to their authors and the cultures from which they emerged, they are fascinating for adults as well.
Because Hardyment’s husband can manage only one month off, her companion until Hamelin—where he catches up—is a friend and her baby, who add incident and bodies to the already full campervan. But her true companion on the journey is Hans Christian Andersen, who was apparently not only a complex figure and author, but also a travel addict: “To travel is to live,” he once wrote. Intrigued by this highly original artist, Hardyment probes his life and work, commenting not only on well-known stories, but also on lesser-known tales—ones I’d certainly never heard of—like the dark and eerie “The Shadow.”
Although Hardyment felt an obligation to create an “educational” trip for the children—after all, she was taking them out of school for many weeks—she was aware that dragging them to museums and churches wouldn’t really work. She balances this admirably. While they visit Tivoli and Legoland, they also take in many cultural sites and, most importantly, they are introduced to other cultures—the foods, the customs, the different ways of behaving. Their responses to what they see—as varied as their personalities—are lively and interesting.
For the family, the highlight of the journey is a chance to stay overnight in an old man’s mountain cabin in Heidi territory, where they drink milk warm from the cow (those of them who can stomach it) and even get to see the cow being milked. For me, the high point was the intriguing story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, which seems to be based on a true story of the disappearance of 130 children from the town in the 13th century—an event that, despite much historical research, no one yet really understands.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which is well-researched, literary, and entertaining, and I plan to use Hardyment’s excellent bibliography to read the best translation of Andersen’s (often poorly translated) tales and find the works too often ignored.
February 18, 2016
In the 1980s, a British writer traveled with her four young daughters in an RV named Bertha on a literary tour of some famous classic children's stories and fairytales through parts of Europe. She hoped that everyone on the trip would discover the settings of these stories and make the stories become alive. A friend and her toddler joined them at the beginning of the trip and the author's husband joined his family on the last leg of their journey.
I enjoyed reading the travelogue adventures which gave me more insight into the writings of Hans Christian Andersen, and the stories about Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates; The Pied Piper of Hamlin, Pincocchio, William Tell, and Heidi. It was even interesting getting lost in East Germany!
I enjoyed reading the travelogue adventures which gave me more insight into the writings of Hans Christian Andersen, and the stories about Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates; The Pied Piper of Hamlin, Pincocchio, William Tell, and Heidi. It was even interesting getting lost in East Germany!
February 22, 2010
I wanted to like this book. It may be that I come back to it and finish it and end up liking it.
The idea of the book appeals to me. It's the kind of thing I like to do with my children, share literature or informational books with them and then take them out to experience part of what we have read. The author of Heidi's Alp wants the same thing for her kids and sets off across Europe with books, her kids and all the necessaries in a camper. The problem is that she's not very convincing as a writer. There's no magic. I've experienced the magic with my kids, so I know that it's there, but just not tangible in this book. Maybe later!
The idea of the book appeals to me. It's the kind of thing I like to do with my children, share literature or informational books with them and then take them out to experience part of what we have read. The author of Heidi's Alp wants the same thing for her kids and sets off across Europe with books, her kids and all the necessaries in a camper. The problem is that she's not very convincing as a writer. There's no magic. I've experienced the magic with my kids, so I know that it's there, but just not tangible in this book. Maybe later!
August 24, 2015
The author decided to borrow a caravan (RV to us Yanks) and take her children on a road trip through Europe to various sites connected with children's literature. Her interest was at least as much academic as child-related, and sometimes the children were bored. The family (joined part of the time by friends) visited sites connected with Hans Christian Andersen, Carlo Collodi, and others (I'm looking back nearly 4 years so my memory is fuzzy.) I did not enjoy this book as much as Joan Bodger's somewhat similar one, How the Heather Looks, which deals with British children's books and which I heartily recommend. Still, it's worth reading for those interested in travel and children's books.
Read
October 19, 2008A delightful travelogue that I highly recommend to those who enjoy reading about the locales of children's books (like How the Heather Looks). The British author takes her daughters on a driving tour through Europe. Lots of Hans Christian Andersen. While I wasn't familiar with all the literature (Pinocchio in Italy, for example), I really enjoyed the domestic details of her family and their adventures. (My mom got this as a birthday gift for herself when I was twelve or thirteen, and I read it many times.)
January 1, 2024
50 cent bargain bin purchase turned out to be a funny, sweet, insightful travel diary around Europe and reminiscence on children’s stories and folk tales that originated there (Hans Christian Andersen, Heidi, and so much more). Also hilariously depicts life on the road with kids - one of my favorite reads!
April 28, 2018
I read this many years ago and remember finding it delightful. It is the story of a mother and her children and their visits to places in Europe that they had read about in children's storybooks.
Inspiration for vacations.
Inspiration for vacations.
March 17, 2008
I had always tried to integrate vacations with books, but this book gave a whole new meaning to that idea.
Read
August 4, 2008Wonderful story of a mother and her daughters traveling through the Europe of fairy tales.
Read
March 28, 2015I'll listen to pretty much anything Julie at the Forgotten Classics podcast chooses to read. So far this one is a lot of fun and I look forward to each new episode. Thanks Julie!
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews