This classic piece of travel writing/memoir is the middle part of a trilogy of autobiographical writing that made Laurie Lee's career. The first part, Cider With Rosie (1959) depicts his idyllic childhood in Gloucestershire, and the final part A Moment of War (1991) is about his experiences in 1937 fighting for the republicans in the Spanish Civil War. This part is about his first visit to Spain in 1935. He spends a year walking across Spain from Vigo in the north west, playing a violin to make enough money to live on. It's an enchanting read, beautifully evoked, funny and moving. He writes with great affection of the characters he meets and befriends, the landscape and countryside, while the forces that unleash the Civil War gather. For anyone who enjoyed Patrick Leigh Fermor's books, this is of the same calibre.