The Road from the Past: a very short review

Ina Caro's The Road from the Past is hard to describe. It's not a travel guide, it's not a history, it's not an autobiography. And yet, in various ways, it is all three.

Caro found herself traveling extensively in France, and decided to try her own approach:

Most people return from Europe with a memory of the places they have visited that is very much like a salad after it has been put through a Cuisinart. They have been to so many countries and heard so many dates and names of kings that when they return, the trip is all a blur. When I see the typical American tourist, I feel like yelling out, "Don't do it that way, it's no fun. Do it my way."

If you do it my way, you will rent a time machine -- available at any rent-a-car agency -- and drive through history. Our time machine can't take us into the future any faster than a minute at a time, but we can, if we properly plan our route, actually simulate the sensation of traveling through several centries of the past on a magical vacation in France. If you follow the route I describe from Provence to Paris, traveling to some of the most magnificent and beautiful monasteries, churches, chateaux, and towns built in France over a period of nearly two thousand years, and visit these sites in the order they were built, you will feel almost as if you are traveling through the past, through the history of France.

Indeed, her book describes exactly that: a journey she and her husband took through France, from Provence to Paris, visiting locations in a way designed to move from the very early Roman times, though the middle ages, into the Renaissance, through the Grand Siecle, and ending at last in modern-day France.

I read portions of Caro's book before a recent trip to Bordeaux, bouncing around from chapter to chapter and "visiting" some of my planned destinations ahead of time, through Caro's eyes.

It was a lovely way to whet my appetite for my journey, but in a way I broke Caro's cardinal rule, because I didn't read her entire book, start to finish, but rather sampled different portions that matched my existing plans.

That is, I read her book as a guidebook, rather than as autobiography.

But really, it doesn't matter: if you're interested in France, and have the time, Caro's book is a lovely way to start learning the extraordinarily long and complex history of this fascinating country. Read it however you want to.