I was expecting this to be a colorful exploration of travel in the Middle Ages. I found it to be too bogged down in tedious details to hold my interest. DNF. The audiobook narration was well done.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

TW/CW: Violence, religious bigotry, executions, talk of illness and death

REVIEW: I received a free copy of this audiobook from NetGalley and am voluntarily writing an honest review.

A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages is a history book that describes the different ways that people traveled during the Middle Ages, and the challenges and dangers that such travel involved. While the book is overwhelmingly Eurocentric, it does touch a bit on the travels of people from China and eastern Asia as well.

I enjoyed this book, for the most part. Since travel was overwhelmingly religious for Europeans in the Middle Ages, this biggest part of this book details the route that people took from Western Europe to the Holy Lands, and touches on the stops along the way. I found this to be interesting, but I think a little more diversity would have been interesting to read as well.

The narrator (who has an English accent!) is very good. He sounds interested in the subject matter, and it doesn’t just sound like a college lecture. He is easy to understand and brings the book to life nicely.

This book is a delight! Bale examines the written record of what tourism meant in the late medieval period. There is a lot of out dated theology mixed in, but, at the heart of it, we see just how the same these people were, as they make very relatable statements about waits for visa paperwork, lost luggage, bad food, amazing views, making new friends, getting overcharged by the locals, and more. Turns out, the British tourist of today looks a lot like the British tourist of the Middle Ages.

In the book a travel guide to the Middle Ages by Anthony Vale we learn everything it took for Europeans to travel to distant places in what they found when they got there. From the brothels of Venice to the friends homes in Türkiye to the pilgrimage to see the Saints in Rome.
The reasons for travel were mini from cleaning out their humorous wanting a Saints blessing or in the case of one Lord‘s son just because he could. I thought the author did a great job touching on the different classes in each tourist site and the different attractions one would find when they got there from restaurants to early ambassador type buildings welcoming different country men to the places they would stay and the places they would avoid. A common thread through the book was how the plague affected those the author mentioned and what they did to prevent it or get rid of it. My favorite part was learning what these people in medieval times had to do to just prepare for the trip and all that entailed and it’s a lot! I find these books so interesting and find Anthony Bale did a great job and seems he forgot nothing. The book was narrated by Esh Alladi Who did a fine job. I really enjoyed these type of books especially when you get first-hand accounts and cannot get enough of them this is a book I definitely recommend for the curious who love history. I want to thank Tantore audio for my free arc copy via NetGalley please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

An interesting approach to history, this takes us through regions of the world during the late Middle Ages. It's organized by region and type of travel, rather than fully chronologically, which I think would work better with the eyes than as an audiobook. As someone who studied medieval history and religious pilgrimage in college, and women and gender in Christian mysticism in grad school, most of the saint veneration pilgrimage was not new to me. Most of the travel to the east was also from a western lens, though the author does frame that appropriately from the vantage of 2024.

The ultimate takeaway is that even in the Middle Ages, people enjoyed exploring, and when travel was outside of one's means, many still found a way to do it. I think this is a great starter book to help someone situate themselves in the geopolitical landscape of the Middle Ages, but didn't bring a lot of extra depth for me.

I have a history degree but work at a library as a librarian. I saw this title and got excited. I listened to it and personally could not get into it. I go to church and know a lot about the places that people ventured to during this time. He discusses pilgrimages and journeys. It was a good book for someone who is just getting into this time period but with studying middle age times a lot it just was not for me.

This was an interesting, entertaining, and meaty book. The author brings you along to the world of the Middle Ages and travels with you through different countries at that time. A must read for any history buff.