There is a gentleman who goes by CJW. CJW’s profession is with the US National Parks Service, and his hobby is travel; travel to Eastern Europe. I had lunch with him in Budapest one day several years ago and found him to be one of the least assuming individuals you could ever hope to meet. Kind, casual easy going but brilliant in his understanding of the world. The sort of gentleman you could talk to for hours, never feel as though you were being lectured to, but still walk away feeling like you had been in a university seminar.
He publishes his diary and in it you will find some of the most descriptive, thought provoking and revealing writing about travel since Patrick Leigh Fermor’s diaries of his trip from Holand to Constantinople. I rarely take a trip any place without first reading CJW’s take on it as there are few better lessons on the culture and history of destinations in Eastern Europe.
I bring this up now because CJW does much of his writing in a format of individual themed series that corresponds with the theme of one of his trips. The one that began about a week ago is “On the Trail of the Orient Express”. I have only begun to read it but it appears that it will begin in Sofia and work north and west. But first to get to Sofia he has to arrive in Frankfurt. No better description of dealing with the Frankfurt airport has ever been written. From there he is starting to digress on to the subject of German train stations and the failures of German and European rail systems. In other words, “Transportation” so I thought it a good fit for this for those that enjoy reading.