In the spring of 1953, Mowat searched for peace by retracing his wartime steps in Europe. He needed to see what the land - and its people - were like when not ravaged by mud, rain, metal, and death.

Traveling by car with his wife, Frances, Mowat revisits England, France, and the nightmarish battlefields of Italy where tragically high numbers of his Canadian friends and comrades had fallen. Mowat's wise and candid travel narrative describes his meeting with former French resistance fighters who, when they learn that he's a Canadian veteran, greet him as though he were a long-lost brother and fete him with food, drink, and stories.

It depicts San Carlo, an Italian town practically leveled in a 1944 battle, now rebuilt and teeming with life. And it reveals ancient places seemingly untouched by the century's rapid-fire progress, including the seaside fishing town of Positano, where fishermen ply their trade as their ancestors did during the Roman Empire, and a flagstone-floored Tudor brewery in Kent, where, since the days of Henry VIII, time and brewing methods appear to have stood still.

Repeatedly and inspiringly, Mowat meets people shaped and changed by tragedy, who are determined to move forward with courage, energy, and optimism.