FRESH FROM THE LAUNDRY

by Ilka Chase ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 10, 1966

The lady travels now... and writes immediately. Upper age travelers with no desire to rough it have come to rely on her breezy assessments of foreign accomodations and comestibles through her peripatetic prattling in The Carthaginian Rose, Second Spring and Two Potatoes, etc. Once again accompanied by her comfortably curmudgeonly husband, Dr. Norton Brown (who supplied the photographs), the author toured Wiesbaden-Prague, Vienna-Budapest, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Greece. Miss Chase is outspoken on all the trivia that can combine to make a trip either perfection or misery--the food, the service, the hotel decor and the plumbing. The Iron Curtain countries tend to have dust in the plush and no water in the pipes, but everywhere the lady went, there was something special in the way of bargains that she shares, an out-of-the-way restaurant discovered (menu briefly analyzed), a sight or site that made each part of the trip worthwhile. The state-supplied guides can make visiting more difficult than it need be, as they did for the author, and some of the hotels are described in book-at-your-own-risk terms. It comes across as honest reporting and it seems more practical than Emily Kimbrough's similar journals de jaunts--just as light and personal, but with less anecdotal incident and more information.

Pub Date: Feb. 10, 1966

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1966

Categories: NONFICTION