Not what I expected but still good overall

I am going to review this based on what it is, not what I hoped it to be but I want to comment on the latter. I try to read the book descriptions and a review or two before I make a Purchase, but I guess the title of this so interested me I did neither. The title made me think it would be a tour of the Middle Ages as if you were a traveler in the era. That is not what it is at all. It is actually a modern tour of selected cities in Europe that still have a strong medieval feel to them. If I planned a trip to Europe I can see using this as a guide to setting my itinerary to include several places as stops on the tour. It would also be useful once in one of these locations as it is narrated as if you are there. In that sense it creates one of my few criticisms of the listening experience as it is much more geared towards a visual experience and not an audio. Prof. Bartlett will say at times things like. Look left and take in the....Move through the entry and then turn left to see....It does come with a PDF but there are only a few black and white pictures in it so you are left with your imagination or waiting until you are on location to get the most out of the listen.
I like his mix of choices, from the expected...Prague, Dubrovnik, and Bruges, to less visited locations like York, Avignon, and Krakow. to those that were unknown to me like Mdina on Malta and Rothenburg in Germany. The last is the most interesting to me. It is the first place covered and is one I definitely would like to visit.
The overall presentation is a mix of travel log and some history of each location He also goes into a lot of architecture which made me wish he had an introductory chapter on the basics of architectural terms. he also gives recommendations on sites to see and places to get a reasonably priced good meal. I wish I had been to one of the places he covered to get a real feel for its value.
Two minor quibbles. The chapters on the audible app do not list the lecture title as they do for other great courses. They are found in the PDF, but as someone with a visual impairment, looking at the PDF on my phone was a challenge. and if I went to one of the locations, I would want to quickly get to the right chapter. The other is the professors odd pronunciation of Peninsula and other words like Schism. This was a bigger problem in another course by him when he used the words more frequently. It takes you out of the narrative every time you hear him say Penin-Chula or Shh-ism.

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4 people found this helpful

Just wanted more

The premise is great. Take 12 European cities that have preserved some of their medeival history and lead us on a tour through each pointing out significant structures and giving some historical background. Professor Bartlett is knowledgeable and can easily hold your attention. I can easily say that it made me want to start working on tickets but alas, due to the pandemic and some budgetary limitations, I had to go to the PDF included with the course and Google Maps/Google Earth instead. 

And therein lies the limitation. This is just difficult to do in a lecture course unless you can provide lots of pictures and maps (and there is a video version available on DVD, but it is quite a bit more expensive). The problem is that the PDF included with the course is very text heavy (not a bad thing) but very much lacking in either photos or maps. There may be only 2 0r 3 photos per lecture, black and white, and not very clear. But, that’s what Google is for, right? But, there are basically no maps. If you want to make this a lecture course, that’s inexcusable. If there was a map, and even better, a map with the key places that are mentioned in the lectures numbered and labeled, I could have looked them up and used Google’s Street View to walk around them, looked for other photos or articles, and really learned something. As it was I found myself with Google Maps opened, pausing the lecture over and over while the professor told me to now look across the street, or to go north a short distance and find another building that he described. How far is a short distance? How can I find that building on Google Maps? By the end of the course, I had given up and just listened thinking that someday, if I ever got to go there, maybe I’d remember this course and could figure out how to find some of the things he had told me about. 

So, it ended up a big disappointment. There was a lot there. It sounded so good. It was very interested. But, I wanted to SEE. The audio course just didn’t give me that nor give me the tools to even look it up. I would love to have Professor Bartlett walking with me on a tour of any of those cities, but a lecture alone just doesn’t cut it.

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A Tour without pictures

He would be a great tour guide but this is like a tour without visuals. The accompanying PDF has about one small black and white photo per chapter so it is very hard to visualize what he is actually describing.

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ENJOY!!

If you love history, this is an enjoyable set of lectures, expertly presented by professor Bartlett.
I learned new historical facts and others re-enforced.
You can follow the outline of the lectures in “Great Courses”, search for the course title.
Check “ Google Earth” for the exact location of the cities and pictures of interesting sites mentioned in the lectures.
My thanks to all involved to present these lectures to us, JK.

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one of my favorite lecturers

Prof. Bartlett is excellent in whatever he lectures on. Originally I thought this was going to be more of a regional tour. Some of the other "travel" Great Courses have covered the UK or Ireland or other specific places. Here I found it fascinating but hard to build a trip around. I was going to visit Prague and thought that the other places covered would be more or less in the same region.

That said, it has inspired me to watch the video version and also to plan to visit the various locales, many of which I haven't gotten to yet.

And as always, Bartlett is a wonderful lecturer. I could listen to him expound on just about any subject.

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Great subject but…

It was very interesting but this doesn’t lend itself to an audio format unless you are following along with all the photos being described.

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Bartlett is brilliant

Love the lecturer! A passionate, informed and fascinating lecture series. Makes medieval Europe come alive. About to visit France and Germany and this series of lectures has added huge value for me in understanding the places we are visiting. (Tbh it’s even set the agenda for where we are visiting) My wife and I listened to Professor Bartletts lecture series on the Renaissance before we went to Italy and it added so much to our trip. If you’re travelling in Europe or interested in what it was like to be alive in the medieval period get this series.

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12 people found this helpful

Another whiny white male...

...who apologizes for everything his ancestors are accused of by the criminal tribe who runs everything. But, Mr. Bartlett wouldn't be a teacher if he didn't hold orthodox views that the alien media run by this same tribe would approve of. Not once did he mention that the white males' very own Creators (e.g. White women) were held as chattel slaves until less than a century ago. No, like a typical white male, he is pretty gay and could care less about those who actually created his hot little mess of a body/mind. Really sickening. Oh, and Mr. Bartlett - do you think your ancestors were wrong 109 times (the # of times they kicked out the criminal tribe)?

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