Again, thank you for all your suggestions. Although I haven't taken up all of them, they are grist to my plodding-route mill and spark off many ideas (as well as bulking up my Amazon wishlist). I think I've got a fairly clear route of where I'm going to go in Europe now, and I think I can even begin to see glimmers of another continent. Hurray! Although I'll regret saying that when all the bedding looks funny and I'm forced to eat three meals a day at McDonald's just to feel like I recognise something.
Third stop: SWITZERLAND! More specifically, Lake Geneva
Book: Hotel du Lac, by Anita Brookner
I have to confess, I'd never read any Brookner before. I think I'd dismissed her as a bit wimmin-y, and although there's the odd phrase here or there that reads a bit heavily-autobiographically, the whole book is neat, and light, and captures perfectly both the sadness of out-of-season resorts and the weight of one's baggage when one flees heartache. Edith Hope, a romantic novelist, has been ordered to Switzerland by her loved ones after a 'shocking' romantic indiscretion. Poor Edith, constantly reminding us that she's been compared aesthetically to Virginia Woolf, is shipped off, carrying her feelings like precious eggs, tuning them constantly but never really examining them, so certain is she of what kind of life she has agreed to.
Although not hugely, uniquely Swiss, I think this conjures up that cold, clear, medicinal travel that only autumn in that kind of place can provide - and I loved Edith's wit, and her sense: in another lifetime, she might have been Elinor Dashwood (and ended up with Hugh Grant SQUEEAAAL). The recognition of her hotel room decor as "veal-coloured" is something that made me snigger out loud on the Tube, and her overactive imagination (and subsequent disappointment) as she views each fellow-guest is something so sadly recognisable.
Earns extra Swiss points by having one character eat lots of delicacies from the Patisserie.
Conclusions as a traveller:
Don't bring your dog to Switzerland. They hate dogs. And probably don't bring your daughter, either.
Right, next stop, Germany. Now these guys are seriously witty, so I am bracing my ribs for some first-class tickling. Please keep the suggestions coming in - although I do have a German book in mind, I'm a bit scared of it.
Sam the Copywriter
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