Along the Amber Route

Following the Amber Route from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, C.J. Schüler charts the origins of amber, the myths and legends that have grown around it, and the dazzling artefacts crafted from it and traded along the way.

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Light, portable and high in value, amber is an ideal commodity for long-distance trade. An Amber Route, comparable to the Silk Road, ran from the Baltic to the Mediterranean for thousands of years.

In Along the Amber Route, C.J. Schüler follows this route by bus, train and boat for 2,500 kilometres along river valleys, forest paths and Roman roads. His journey traces both the greatest fault lines of European geopolitics and his own family’s history. As he explores lands contested by Romans and Vandals, Teutons and Slavs, lost empires and the former Iron Curtain, Schüler must also confront his own family history, Nazism and the Holocaust.