Miles Away: A Walk Across France [Hardcover]

Miles Morland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 24, 1993

"[A] humorous and effervescent memoir of reflection, revitalization and good wine." -- San Francisco Chronicle
At age forty-five, Miles Morland left his high-paying job at the London office of a Wall Street firm and took a leap -- actually, a hike -- into the unknown. A self-described "middle-aged wreck," Miles set out with his wife, Guislaine, to walk across France, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.
Setting for themselves the goal of twenty miles a day, Miles and Guislaine made their way past farmyards and riverbanks, through dusty village squares and ripening vineyards, into ancient walled cities and over sand dunes. And as the hot, dry countryside unfolded slowly before them, the couple looked back with relief -- and wonder -- at the tense, frenzied corporate life they had left behind.
The story of a walk, a marriage, an adventure, and a dream made real, A WALK ACROSS FRANCE marks the debut of an enormously entertaining writer.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Walking tours are popular these days. And when you're a high-powered banker (British, in this case), it's the ticket for leaving behind job stress and reprioritizing what's important in life. That was the impulse behind Morland and his wife setting off on a 350-mile walk from the Mediterranean coast to the Atlantic coast of southern France. They had no guide--they plotted their own path and arranged for their own food and lodging. They suffered blisters, they learned French history, they argued and made up. Morland's humorous and colorful account of it all will give readers the desire to go off somewhere and do something entirely different. "We were often tired, irritated, thirsty, hot, lost and sore, but never bored." Shouldn't life always be like that? Brad Hooper

From Kirkus Reviews

Warmhearted, lightly humorous, food-strewn story of the author's walking trip across France with his wife. As Morland crosses France from the Mediterranean through the foothills of the Pyrenees to the Atlantic, he acts as straight man to his droll wife, Guislaine, and their mild snipings and pleasantries come as relief to the actual walking trip, with its towpaths, wrong turns, canals, hills, flowers, bedrooms, blisters, and dogs. Dogs, Morland tells us, are the bane of European hikers, and he walks armed with a high-pitched siren to drive them off (though, to Guislaine's distress, the siren doesn't do its job). For all the walking, though, the real high points here are back in time--in London--as Morland gives us background about the job he quit (after a long Wall Street stint, he managed a First Boston stock brokerage in London), and about the highjinks and stresses of office politics that he no longer misses after 22 years of a daily grind. Morland's account will appeal to many now under similar stress--and he doesn't give the old job or whatever new one may lie ahead a passing thought while hiking. The 350-mile walk also becomes something of a welding together with Guislaine: The couple had divorced after 13 years of marriage (and had endured three years of misery before the divorce became final), then remarried. After the walking trip, the pair wrote a book about the trip, but it was a dud; Miles took another shot at it and wrote this. In its way, more charming than Peter Mayle, and certainly not to be missed if you plan a hike through southern France. (Map) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 238 pages
• Publisher: Random House (August 24, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679425276
• ISBN-13: 978-0679425274
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,213,311 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A fragment of an autobiography, May 6, 2003

By 

K. M. Pollard "PhD" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Walk Across France (Paperback)

If you are looking for a travel-log of things to see and do as you walk across France, then this book is not for you. The content of this book is really a fragment of Miles Morland's biography. It can be considered a daily diary describing the progress of Morland and his wife (Guislaine) as they walk across southern France from the Mediterranean to the French coast. Dispersed among the descriptions of countryside, farm animals (especially dogs and one amusing encounter with a very large bull), hotels and cafes are vignettes of the Morland's troubled marriage, and Morland's career "Shouting Down The Phone" in the financial districts of London and New York. The walk is the Morland's first venture after Miles has "retired" from "Shouting Down The Phone". (I am repeating the phrase just to mimic one aspect of the book.) Undertaking such a walk deserves considerable praise, especially as neither of them had any prior claim to physical fitness. The walk was made less difficult by carrying light packs and walking relatively small distances each day. Extensive planning helped them identify towns and villages with suitably comfortable beds and restaurants which might provide shelter and food at night. Even so they do not find things as idyllic as many readers might expect from the title. The faults of many of the accommodations and cafes they visit are noted in some detail, although without malice - I suspect that the Morland's expectations were higher than is the reality of village France. It's worth noting that although Miles did not miss his old job during and immediately after the walk (he planned on becoming a writer), he does appear to have gone back to it in recent times. Whether his marriage survived remains unanswered!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun, amusing, and inspiring, April 4, 2001

By 

Lissy Friedman - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Walk Across France (Paperback)

I enjoyed the bemused, self-deprecating tone of the narrator in this story. He is a typical Englishman and he knows it, and he plays this as a strength in giving us his impression of life, the Walk he and his half-French wife take across France, and his mid-life crisis. As I read the book, I felt like I was making a friend.

The descriptions of the countryside and the sights were a little sparse, and I found it hard to imagine what it all looked like. Also, the snippets of history provided were a little jarring and disconnected, and not terribly interesting. But the thing that makes this book a winner and redeems it is the gentle and wide-eyed optimism of its protagonists, the Morlands, as well as their indomitable spirit in facing the hardships of walking hundreds of miles.

I was hoping to learn a little more about France, but still thought this book was a nice read for while I was commuting on the subway to work. Sometimes my journey felt like it was paralleling the Morlands'.

I recommend this book if you like travelogues and are interested in France.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an inspiration; couldn't put it down, September 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Walk Across France (Paperback)

I found this to be a wonderful blend of the physiological challenge of undertaking such a walk and the emotional challenge of doing so with a partner and in a foreign land. Morland slips into recollections of his former life ("Shouting Down the Phone" in stocks and bonds, and pasting together a cracked marriage) just at the right moments, like daydreams that swoop down and fly away with your mind without warning. I was as driven as they were to reach the Atlantic, and I read the book more quickly than any other in recent years. And Morland's introspective look at career vs. heart goals was inspiring. I was ready for an open-ended sabbatical before I read this; now I'm hellbent.