I am currently working on the Traveler’s Companion, a booklet for players. 1920s tourist information for the Balkans has proven difficult to come by in English, especially with my 25% Library Use. The area was beyond the itinerary of all but the most ambitious Western European travelers and Baedekers shed no light for me. I trawled through some earlier material indexed at archive.org and found Through Savage Europe, the adventures of Harry De Windt, the intrepid correspondent for the Westminster Gazette and his trusty “bioscope artist”, the redoubtable Mr Mackenzie. Although published in 1907, well before our 1920s setting, this little volume gave me a lovely vignette of the Orient Express, as our weary and paprika-stained travelers climb aboard just outside of Sofia. It evokes the train as a rolling Shangri-La and perfectly captures the wonder contemporary travelers felt towards the Express.
What a wonderful find. I look forwards to encountering the fascinating Mr De Windt and unflappable Mac over breakfast.
Would that be this Harry de Lindt? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_de_Windt
Oddly, he is a cousin (a few times removed)
That is the very de Windt, Damien! Adventure runs in your veins. Here’s a splendid description from the Classic Travel Books website: “A Fellow of the prestigious Royal Geographic Society of England, Harry de Windt had two of the traits essential to adventurers: bravery and foolhardiness.”
Partly, I believe we are perhaps from the successful-yet-black-sheep side of the family, where Mr de Windt’s great-uncle had some children with a slave on his sugar plantation… 🙂 on the other hand, his father may have been a witness at one of the weddings of said children, so who knows.