After reading "Notes from a Big Country",(probably one of the funniest books I've ever read - a must-read for any European who has travelled the US!), I was ecstatic, ready to get my hands on anything Bryson has ever written.
But what a letdown this one was!
It started out okay, I had a few laughs in the beginning, but in the course of his journey, he seems to be getting tired, and, boy,does it show! Just a long list of checking in and out of hotels in different European cities, eating at mediocre restaurants with unfriendly waiters, you hardly learn anything about the places he went to, or the people (well, neither did he apparently...)
Every now and then he leaves the plot to tell some anecdote, that's when his usual humour shows up again, but just for that, you don't have to read the whole book.
And what's that personal revenge thing, he's got going with the Germans and Austrians, and the dark episode in our history!? Yes, it was terrible, and shall never be forgotten, but cool it, man!!
Well, he lives in England, that might explain some of it;-)