2,000 km, mostly by train from Lithuania to Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and finally Croatia. Passionate about sports and their material memories - such as the former Olympic Village in Sarajevo - From the Baltic to the Balkans by Stuart McMillan is an informative dense journey in a part of the world where people may travel but not necessarily see the people and history.

I´ve personally been in almost the places featured in the book - except Bosnia and Herzegovina which is on my ´bucket list´ - some of them more than once - like Hungary - and I was pleased to discover features of sights that I know with the eyes and the mind. The chapter about Budapest for instance was so well written that I could see the places I used to know unfolding in the front of my eyes.

The stops of the journey are mostly the popular ones: Dubrovnik, Sarajevo, Belgrad, Budapest, Vilnius but was interesting to notice the new angles - there were a few - and the personal observations and local feeling about places and people.

For anyone planning some consistent travel in those parts of the world, From the Baltic to the Balkans is a good start as it also includes some information about planning and useful observations about money, price differences and some tasty local foods. It also has some sport references which make the book unique in terms of information, especially for sports fans and travellers and some tips regarding the best viewpoints from where you can try to shoot almost as beautiful panorama pictures as the author´s displays in the book (I´ve read the book on Kindle and the quality was not so great though).

Really enjoyed this book. Informative, interesting. I would recommend it. I read it in two days cover to cover

Really enjoyed this, it was a short book, but I enjoyed it non the less.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

This was very pleasant but rather random and not compellingly written. It is an enjoyable overview of the author’s travels through Eastern Europe, which takes on greater resonance given the current conflicts.

I really enjoy travel books, and have always had a fascination with the Balkans and the former Soviet Union. This was a quick travelogue of the region which definitely helped me to get a better sense of place. I agree with other reviewers that one of the things I love about travel writing is getting a better feel for culture, language, and people, and this book leaned heavily on geographic orientation and architecture. While I might have preferred a deeper dive, it definitely inspired me to do some further reading on the region, particularly the Balkan War and its aftermath.

Enjoyed this book but felt it was more generalised though rather than real personal experiences and could of expanded on the personal side

If I'd have ever gone from Kaunas to Dubrovnik it'd have been by (highly implausible) organised coach trip – and not required a dogleg via Moscow. I haven't done that non-existent holiday, however, nor anything like it, but have popped into a few of the places en route, making this a welcome retread of old ground and visit to places new. And I leave the author in the unique position of needing the train guard to evict someone from his bunk on an overnight train to Budapest, seemingly leaving himself with the lad's girlfriend and the quandary of undressing for the night.

This surprisingly slender volume actually managed to convey what I felt it should. I mean it's fine, while it's being slight. I would mention it's a 2021 book discussing 2013 events and sights, having been written in 2017, but someone's already slated me for saying travel books go out of date (er, yeah – they do age, much like the best of us, and when the places are as accessible as this, at least). The whole has a friendly mien, meaning it's what you'd make notes of to tell your buddies, a mixture of what you did and where what is. The style has no pretensions to being great travel literature, it's just a common response to some fabulous locations.

I couldn't get anything of Vilnius from the recap here, but my visit was decades ago. It certainly was a long time since I'd thought of Budapest's Memento Park, where all the ex-communicated Soviet statues (ex-Commie-cated?) lie for perusal. I've not been back to Yugoslavia since its dispersal, and the writing here certainly made me think about joining a few dots, even if it did have the slight touch of being less than thoroughly discerning. That said, pretty much anywhere in Europe is a safe bet for a nice time, and it's likewise hard to fail at presenting a diary of your travels round the place. There're no failures here.

As an armchair traveler this was a wonderful trip for me.Full of interesting information lots to see and in a short format.Really enjoyed#netgalley#matadorbooks

From The Baltics to the Balkans; Tales from an Eastern European Rail Adventure by Stuart McMillan
I found this book very disappointing. It was not a “rail adventure” as many times he went from city to city by plane rather than switch and spend more time on the trains. Secondly, he traveled through I believe seven countries but in most cases he never left the main city of the country. Additionally, Mr. McMillan is an observer and a loaner so during this trip he made no contact with the local people but merely gave a condensed quick travel guide of the churches and parks he saw. All of these cities have interesting recent histories and stories to tell. Many for instance like Budapest are also used in fictional spy novels. Again, nothing about these. Lastly, perhaps he was on a tight budget but I never felt he enjoyed the wide variety of food and drink that would have been available especially if shared with friends or lovers.
Not a book I would recommend.

From the Baltic to the Balkans is a travel and culture book best suited to anyone thinking of doing a similar journey or visiting one of the places on route. I love travel books but I have to admit I wasn't keen on the style of this one. It is a little bit dry and stiff, and I just couldn't get a feel for the places. I am not that interested in facts figures and too much historical information, I prefer to get a feel for the place in all my senses so I could almost feel as though I was there. I think this is just a personal preference though, and there are plenty of people out there who will absolutely love this travel book.

This is how I travel, vicariously through books. And as such, this was a fun adventure. It’s a relatively short trip and certainly a very short book, so you have to adjust your expectations accordingly. The actual alliterative traversing took place something like 8 years ago, the author is a prolific traveler who wanted to jot down some of his stories to inspire the wanderlust in others.
Sure enough, his love of travel comes through loud and clear on every page. The man is the kind of traveler who loves all of it and find the sunny side of every egg, so even when the conditions leave a lot to be desired, he manages to find worth and appeal in the experience. It’s charming in a way, especially because this isn’t born out of ignorance, this comes from someone who is aware of the sociopolitical situation, past and present, and chooses to or tries to see the beauty of the place anyway.
But then again, there isn’t much space in this book to pontificate or go on, these are more like somewhat elaborate postcards or quick sketches of places…with ample amount of black and white (at least on my kindle) photos provided. The great thing about this trip is that it takes you on the least obvious/popular international destinations, so armchair travelers should enjoy that. Overall, a nice quick trip without leaving one’s armchair. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

For a work that traverses through several different nations, “From the Baltic to the Balkans” ends up being surprisingly light on substance. The book mainly consists of descriptions of major landmarks of the various cities that were visited by the author and brief musings on major historical events tied to the relatively recent respective pasts of his various destinations. It almost ends up reading like an underdeveloped travel guide more than anything else.

This might be good for readers with little to no familiarity with the region, but even from that perspective this book honestly feels pretty shallow and wanting.