Once Around the Fountain

by Alan Behr

The author describes his travels through Europe with a fun-loving woman named Julie. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1566492246
• ISBN13: 9781566492249
• Release Date: October 2001
• Publisher: Welcome Rain Publishers
• Length: 220 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Travelers tale with Spice

Travelers tales are amongst my favourite reading, so I was delighted to find Alan Behr's dry humored account of his travels in the "chocolate belt" in Europe. As a recent bachelor, and still very cautious of involvement, Behr revisits his old travel haunts, casually giving us the pleasure of some wonderfully crafted writing and the benefit of his extensive research of local history. Despite his family having to flee war torn Europe in the late 30's, Behr feels strongly connected to his German roots and writes affectionately and knowledgeably about the country. I found this particularly interesting as I was born in Germany, but had previously only heard disparaging stories about the country as my family suffered under the Nazi reign. Feeling Behr's connection, added another dimension and opened some doors on my rather narrow view.Some of Behr's sexual dalliances made me wonder in which direction the story was heading, but the tale gains great warmth and depth when Alan meets Julie, the real love interest.Together they go traveling back to Europe and into exploring their emotions. It all makes for compulsive reading!

Perfect bonding

We are a couple of post peak yuppies who work too much and spend the best moments of our lives travelling.Alan Behr's very insighful observations are well wrought , highly entertaining and even profound. The book also provides legitimate historical information thaat goes far beyond most tourist guides. But for us, the best aspect of his book is his depiction of the conquest of love and discovery of self through travel in the European settings that we both know so well.The only minor note is that the book could use an index, to navigate more easily from city to city.For anyone who loves Europe, travelling, or just loving his/her partner and trying to figure out the meaning of our voyage in life, this book is a delightful companion.

From table for one to table for two--a traveler finds love

Once around the fountain book reviewNovember 25, 2001I have always enjoyed travel accounts written by writers in their thirties and forties because at this time in their lives, most writers (at least the good ones) bring just the right amount of own personal baggage along. In other words, if they tell it right, there is an interesting balance of give and take--sometimes the travel writer changes the landscape and sometimes the landscape changes him.As I result, I enjoyed reading the mature but unjaded observations of travel writer/ attorney Alan Behr. He writes about a decade of European travel that begins in his early thirties and ends in his early forties. He begins his travels as a bachelor and there is a sexual "give and take" as he has an affair with a destitute but resourceful young chambermaid in Budapest--and rejects the advances of a wealthy, less resourceful dowager he meets at a café in Portofino. Mid-way through his memoirs, he cautiously starts to travel with Julie Hackett, a New York fashion consultant, whom he quickly realizes is "the one." Julie turns out to be an energetic and enthusiastic traveler and the give and take continues, sometimes romantically, and sometimes, literally, as Behr tracks down a pair of white pants that Julie leaves behind in a hotel room. While at first they squabble over driving and navigation, soon Alan and Julie are traveling as a finely tuned pair, even coordinating efforts to save and travel with an unwieldy pineapple left from a hotel gift basket.This book educates as it amuses. Behr, currently a New Yorker by way of New Orleans, is descended from a family forced to flee Germany during World War II. His German roots run so deep, that he holds dual American and German citizenships-and has the passports to prove it. As a result, he is at his best describing Germany- and we learn a great deal about German architecture and history, as well as the nature of its people.Behr describes the cathedral of Cologne, which has withstood World War II bombers and an earthquake, writing that it "towers above a city rebuilt on the quick by the lowest bidder, a Gothic thumb in the modernist eye."On a Sunday at dawn at Hamburg's open-air fish market, he sees "bacchants and churchgoers contentedly carried away swaddled fish and tubs filled with houseplants rumored to be Dutch and disease-ridden."This book reminds me of another that I enjoyed-- New Yorker Adam Gopnik's book Paris to the Moon-even though Gopnik stayed in one place and Behr moves around. In both cases, however, these books on European lifestyle and travel are more about people than they are about places and things.Highly recommended!