Severgnini is an excellent travel companion, witty — sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes slyly amusing — and perceptive, with a particular genius for the summative statement ... While Severgnini finds much to admire in other cultures and is always willing to laugh at Italian foibles, he is also justifiably proud of his own nation’s cultural history and is aware of its impact on the present ... The seven pages of advice on writing, while geared toward travel writing, are useful even for writers stationary at their desks ... brings the stages, cafes and bazaars to us as we relax by the fire.
Severgnini’s love affair with trains is as long as the Trans-Siberian Railway. Longer, perhaps ... Italy’s tortured political past gets full treatment ... Wry observations and gentle humor abound in addition to elegiac writing on trains and train travel.
Ffunny and perceptive ... Severgnini’s observations keep the narrative going ... This is a not-to-be-missed book for railroad fans or travelers of any mode.
Unfortunately, readers will manage barely a chuckle, and there isn’t much detail on what makes the journey remarkable. The book is essentially an extended journal. Severgnini dismisses each day of the trip with little more than a few paragraphs, and he compresses his accounts of the other excursions to a page or two of matter-of-fact encounters and experiences ... Some of the author’s excursions included a video crew, and these pieces read like program notes ... Reading like notes toward a more in-depth book on train travel, the narrative requires fuller-fleshed characters and experiences.
