A Time of Gifts
This beloved account about an intrepid young Englishman on the first leg of his walk from London to Constantinople is simply one of the best works of travel literature ever written. At the age of eighteen, Patrick Leigh Fermor set off from the heart of London on an epic journey--to walk to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts is the rich account of his adventures as far as Hungary, after which Between the Woods and the Water continues the story to the Iron Gates that divide the Carpathian and Balkan mountains. Acclaimed for its sweep and intelligence, Leigh Fermor's book explores a remarkable moment in time. Hitler has just come to power but war is still ahead, as he walks through a Europe soon to be forever changed--through the Lowlands to Mitteleuropa, to Teutonic and Slav heartlands, through the baroque remains of the Holy Roman Empire; up the Rhine, and down to the Danube. At once a memoir of coming-of-age, an account of a journey, and a dazzling exposition of the English language, A Time of Gifts is also a portrait of a continent already showing ominous signs of the holocaust to come.
Between the Woods And the Water
Continuing the epic foot journey across Europe begun in A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor writes about walking from Hungary to the Balkans. The journey that Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on in 1933--to cross Europe on foot with an emergency allowance of one pound a day--proved so rich in experiences that when much later he sat down to describe them, they overflowed into more than one volume. Undertaken as the storms of war gathered, and providing a background for the events that were beginning to unfold in Central Europe, Leigh Fermor's still-unfinished account of his journey has established itself as a modern classic. Between the Woods and the Water, the second volume of a projected three, has garnered as many prizes as its celebrated predecessor, A Time of Gifts. The opening of the book finds Leigh Fermor crossing the Danube--at the very moment where his first volume left off. A detour to the luminous splendors of Prague is followed by a trip downriver to Budapest, passage on horseback across the Great Hungarian Plain, and a crossing of the Romanian border into Transylvania. Remote castles, mountain villages, monasteries and towering ranges that are the haunt of bears, wolves, eagles, gypsies, and a variety of sects are all savored in the approach to the Iron Gates, the division between the Carpathian mountains and the Balkans, where, for now, the story ends.
Time Out Turin
In this first edition of Time Out Turin, resident writers guide readers through the city's most seductive artistic landmarks, including architect Renzo Piano's "bubble" atop a classic Fiat building and the dramatic Sandretto Re Rebaudengo exhibition space. Here too is Europe's largest cinema museum in Italy's pointiest building. But the guide goes further afield, to the glorious countryside of the surrounding Piedmonte region, detailing exquisite wineries in Barolo, Nebbiolo, and Barbaresco, along with the best skiing destinations. A full range of accommodations, from charming pensiones to glamorous villas, is profiled, along with dining options for all budgets.
Spanish Recognitions
At eighty-two years old, Mary Lee Settle set off alone to find the Spain she thought she knew. But, like Columbus on another voyage of discovery, she found something many things that she hadn't even known she was looking for. Winner of a National Book Award for fiction and author of an acclaimed book of travel and history on Turkey, Settle brings to her task the visual equivalent of perfect pitch. She follows the great, traumatic flows in Spanish history: the Moorish conquest from south to north, and the Christian reconquista several hundred years later in the opposite direction. Those epic struggles, shaped by geography, are the source of the fascinating tensions in the Spanish character, in its art, architecture, and literature, and the author's magical prose puts these gifts in our hands."
The Dark Heart Of Italy
In 1999 Tobias Jones immigrated to Italy, expecting to discover the pastoral bliss described by centuries of foreign visitors. Instead, he found a very different country: one besieged by unfathomable terrorism and deep-seated paranoia. The Dark Heart of Italy is Jones's account of his four-year voyage across the Italian peninsula. Jones writes not just about Italy's art, climate, and cuisine but also about the much livelier and stranger sides of the Bel Paese: the language, soccer, Catholicism, cinema, television, and terrorism. Why, he wonders, does the parliament need a "slaughter commission"? Why do bombs still explode every time politics start getting serious? Why does everyone urge him to go home as soon as possible, saying that Italy is a "brothel"? Most of all, why does one man, Silvio Berlusconi-in the words of a famous song-appear to own everything from Padre Nostro (Our Father) to Cosa Nostra (the Mafia)? The Italy that emerges from Jones's travels is a country scarred by civil wars and "illustrious corpses"; a country that is proudly visual rather than verbal, based on aesthetics rather than ethics; a country where crime is hardly ever followed by punishment; a place of incredible illusionism, where it is impossible to distinguish fantasy from reality and fact from fiction.
Eurydice Street
Sofka Zinovieff had fallen in love with Greece as a student, but little suspected that years later she would return for good with an expatriate Greek husband and two young daughters. This book is a wonderfully fresh, funny and inquiring account of her first year as an Athenian. The whole family have to get to grips with their new life and identities: the children start school and tackle a new language, and Sofka's husband, Vassilis, comes home after half a lifetime away. Meanwhile, Sofka resolves to get to know her new city and become a Greek citizen, which turns out to be a process of Byzantine complexity. As the months go by, Sofka's discovers how memories of Athens' past haunt its present in its music, poetry and history. She also learns about the difficult art of catching a taxi, the importance of smoking, the unimportance of time-keeping, and how to get your Christmas piglet cooked at the baker's.
Great Sleeps Italy
For 20 years, savvy travelers have trusted Sandra Gustafson for real finds and great value abroad. Completely revised and updated, this beloved guide offers in-the-know counsel on the best deals for your money and most unique places to stay in Florence, Rome, and Venice. Both first-time and veteran visitors will find plenty of invaluable tips in these pages, thanks to the author's painstaking research. For this edition, Sandra revisited each of the recommended hotels, and searched high and low for great new finds. With their lively, detailed, and personal reviews, the Italy guides are proven favorites in this popular seriesand the antidote to the most-common-denominator travel guides. Including practical advice on transportation, reservations, holidays, and even shopping tips, the Great Eats and Sleeps series is the perfect companion for anyone in search of the authentic Italy.
In The Spirit Of Venice
An inside view of Venice from bon vivant, art historian, author, musician, and world traveler Alexis Gregory, evoking the great palaces of Venice, legendary friends including Peggy Guggenheim, Lily Volpi, and Arrigo Cipriani, and great Venetian figures of the past such as the mad Marchesa Casati, the Sapphic muse Princess Winnaretta de Polignac, and the spoiled Charles de Besteigui. In this illustrated book, the city's emblematic characters, places, and events come alive.
The Grand Tour
The tradition of the Grand Tour was started in 1608 by an intrepid but down-at-the-heels English courtier named Thomas Coryate, who walked across Europe, miraculously managed to return home in one piece, and wrote a book about his bawdy misadventures. With The Grand Tour, Tim Moore proves not only that he is Coryate's worthy successor but one of the finest and funniest travel writers working today. Armed with a well-thumbed reprint of Coryate's book, Moore donned a purple plush suit and set off in a second-hand and highly temperamental Rolls-Royce through France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Holland. Like Coryate, Moore possesses an astonishing ability to land himself in humiliating predicaments. His account of his hilariously memorable misadventures on Venice's canals on one fateful afternoon is by itself worth the price of admission. Moore brings new life to the Old World and in the process sends readers into paroxysms of laugher and delight.
Off The Road
When Jack Hitt set out to walk the 500 miles from France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, he submitted to the rigorous traditions of Europe's oldest form of packaged tour, a pilgrimage that has been walked by millions in the history of Christendom. Off the Road is an unforgettable exploration of the sites that people believe God once touched: the strange fortress said to contain the real secret Adam learned when he bit into the apple; the sites associated with the murderous monks known as the Knights Templar; and the places housing relics ranging from a vial of the Virgin Mary's milk to a sheet of Saint Bartholomew's skin. Along the way, Jack Hitt finds himself persevering by day and bunking down by night with an unlikely and colorful cast of fellow pilgrims -- a Flemish film crew, a drunken gypsy, a draconian Belgian air force officer, a man who speaks no languages, a one-legged pilgrim, and a Welsh family with a mule. In the day-to-day grind of walking under a hot Spanish sun, Jack Hitt and his cohorts not only find occasional good meals and dry shelter but they also stumble upon some fresh ideas about old-time zealotry and modern belief. Off the Road is an engaging and witty travel memoir of an offbeat journey through history that turns into a provocative rethinking of the past.
Among the Pilgrims
Mary Victoria Wallis's Among the Pilgrims is the story of her two pilgrimages - one by bicycle in 1997 and one on foot in 1998 - in northern Spain along the thousand year old route to the shrine of St. James the Apostle at Santiago de Compostela. In ten chapters covering everything from medieval miracle tales to the modern perils of shin splints and flat tires, she gives her view, as a medievalist, outdoor enthusiast, and inquiring pilgrim with Buddhist leanings, of the five hundred mile trail to Santiago. Among the Pilgrims takes the reader through a landscape of both the past and the present, the real and the imagined, through a topography not only of village and field, but of mind and spirit as well. In the cultural remains of medieval pilgrimage, Mary searches for the spiritual seeds of modern pilgrimage. Using a personal and impressionistic style, Among the Pilgrims brings into relief the treasury of literature, art, architecture, music, philosophy and science that was born and transmitted along the Camino de Santiago. Early in her first trip, for instance, Mary climbs the pass over the Pyrenees into the Spanish town of Roncesvalles. Here, in 779 AD, Count Roland was slain, blowing a dying note upon his magical oliphant to summon help from King Charlemagne - thereby giving birth to Le Chanson de Roland - and French literature. On the dry plains of northern Castile, she discovers the cradle of many Western musical traditions. Further west, she comes upon a 12th-century Templars castle that Napoleon thought about blowing up only two hundred years ago. Far from being isolated cultural artifacts, these stories, places and treasures are part of a heritage reaching into our own time. They are also mirrors in which we can find ourselves.
Italy
Italy's rising literary stars join some of its best-known writers -- including Nobel-laureate Luigi Pirandello, Natalia Ginzburg, Alberto Moravia, and Antonio Tabucchi -- to take the reader on a panoramic tour of both city and countryside, across the social spectrum, surveying the country's rich cultural history. Explore Italy's popular tourist destinations and out-of-the-way spots under the fresh and even startling light cast by these twenty-three diverse and exciting stories, most of which are available here in English for the first time. For those who wish to reach beyond the stereotypes and get an insider's view to discover an Italy that's off the beaten path, as well as new insights along familiar, well-traveled roads, these stories -- arranged geographically for the traveler, armchair or otherwise -- are an excellent place to start. Contributors include Barbara Alberti, Corrado Alvaro, Romano Bilenchi, Massimo Bontempelli, Dino Buzzati, Andrea Camilleri, Natalia Ginzburg, Claudio Magris, Marilia Mazzeo, Luigi Malerba, Dacia Maraini, Maria Messina, Alberto Moravia, Aldo Palazzeschi, Goffredo Parise, Luigi Pirandello, Domenico Rea, Mario Rigoni Stern, Lalla Romano, Alberto Savinio, Tiziano Scarpa, Antonio Tabucchi, and Federigo Tozzi.
Venetian Dreaming
Who hasn't longed to escape to the enchanting canals and mysterious alleyways of Venice? Globetrotting writer Paula Weideger not only dreamed the dream, she took the leap. In Venetian Dreaming, she charts the course of her love affair with one of the world's most treasured cities. Weideger's search for a place to live eventually takes her to the Palazzo Don? dalle Rose, one of the rare Venetian palaces continuously inhabited by the family that built it. She weaves the past lives of the family Don? with her own adventures as she threads her way through the labyrinthine city. Art and architecture are a constant presence. Yet even more strongly felt is the passage of time, the panorama of the seasons as reflected in special events -- Carnival, the Film Festival, September's historic regatta, midnight mass at San Marco. We follow Weideger as she explores the Ghetto, the expatriate community, and the lives of locals from noblemen to boatmen. Along the way she encounters everyone from the ghost of Peggy Guggenheim to the Merchant Ivory crowd, and experiences some high drama with the Contessa, her landlady. The resulting memoir is a wry and illuminating, intelligent and tender account of the once grand heritage and now imperiled future of Venice.
Little Italy (NY)
Often separated from other immigrants because of their language, Italian immigrants to New York City in the 1880s formed thriving communities apart from their new neighbors.They tended to think of themselves collectively as a small Italian colony, La Colonia, that made up part of the demographics of the city. In each of the five boroughs, Italians set up many colonies. Several of them dotted Manhattan in East Harlem, the West Village, what is now SoHo, and the downtown area of the Lower East Side, straddling Canal Street, which still identifies Manhattan's Little Italy, the best-known Italian neighborhood in America. Little Italy is made up of stunning photographs culled from numerous private and public collections. It begins with the first phase of immigrants to Lower Manhattan in the early 1800s, including political and religious refugees such as Lorenzo Da Ponte and Giuseppe Garibaldi. In the 1870s, more and more Italian immigrants settled in Little Italy. As the neighborhood grew up around the former Anthony and Orange Streets, New York's first ""Little Italy"" emerged. The tumultuous history of the Five Points area, the ""Bloody Ole Sixth Ward,"" and many faces and memories from the Italian newspapers L'Eco d'Italia and Il Progresso Italo-Americano are also included in this long-awaited pictorial history.
Italian Affair
When Laura Fraser's husband leaves her for his high school sweetheart, she takes off, on impulse, for Italy, and discovers not only a lasting sense of pleasure, but a more fully recovered sense of her emotional and sexual self. "Sweet, smart. We are smitten from the start." --O: The Oprah MagazineWhen Laura Fraser's husband leaves her for his high school sweetheart, she takes off, on impulse, for Italy, hoping to leave some of her sadness behind. There, on the island of Ischia, she meets M., an aesthetics professor from Paris with an oversized love of life. What they both assume will be a casual vacation tryst turns into a passionate, transatlantic love affair, as they rendezvous in London, Marrakech, Milan, the Aeolian Islands, and San Francisco. Each encounter is a delirious immersion into place (sumptuous food and wine, dazzling scenery, lush gardens, and vibrant streetscapes) and into each other. And with each experience, Laura brings home not only a lasting sense of pleasure, but a more fully recovered sense of her emotional and sexual self. Written with an observant eye, an open mind, and a delightful sense of humor, An Italian Affair has the irresistible honesty of a story told from and about the heart.
Pasquale's Nose
Everywhere hailed for its quirkiness, its hilarity, its charm, Pasquale's Nose tells the story of a New York City lawyer who runs away to a small Etruscan village with his wife and new baby, and discovers a community of true eccentrics -- warring bean growers, vanishing philosophers, a blind bootmaker, a porcupine hunter -- among whom he feels unexpectedly at home.
Amsterdam
Travel to one of the most dynamic cities in the world in the company of its finest writers. The stories in this volume will take you on a personal odyssey through the city's rich past to its dynamic present. Arranged by the areas of Amsterdam they illuminate, these stories offer up a rich literary banquet to the traveler who wishes to experience the character and soul of this great city. Join better-known Dutch writers such as Harry Mulisch and Cees Nooteboom, along with those whose writing appears in English here for the first time, as they lead you along the canals, through the neighborhoods, and from the past to the present in this rare collection of twentieth-century Dutch literature. Contributors include Cees Nooteboom, J.J. Voskuil, Simon Carmiggelt, J. Bernlef, Martin Bril, Remco Campert, Marion Bloem, Maarten 't Hart, Geert Mak, Hermine Landvreugd, Gerrit Komrij, Bas Heijne, Lizzy Sara May, Gerard Reve, Marga Minco, Harry Mulisch, and Hafid Bouazza.
On Celtic Tides
A sea kayak battles the freezing Irish waters as the morning sun rises out of the countryside. On the western horizon is the pinnacle of Skellig Michael-700 feet of vertical rock rising out of exploding seas. Somewhere on the isolated island are sixth-century monastic ruins where the light of civilization was kept burning during the Dark Ages by early Christian Irish monks. Puffins surface a few yards from the boat, as hundreds of gannets wheel overhead on six foot wing spans. The ocean rises violently and tosses paddler and boat as if they were discarded flotsam. This is just one day of Chris Duff's incredible three month journey.
The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago
The road across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela in the northwest was one of the three major Christian pilgrimage routes during the Middle Ages, leading pilgrims to the resting place of the Apostle St. James. Today, the system of trails and roads that made up the old pilgrimage route is the most popular long-distance trail in Europe, winding from the heights of the Pyrenees to the gently rolling fields and woods of Galicia. Hundreds of thousands of modern-day pilgrims, art lovers, historians, and adventurers retrace the road today, traveling through a stunningly varied landscape which contains some of the most extraordinary art and architecture in the western world. For any visitor, the Road to Santiago is a treasure trove of historical sites, rustic Spanish villages, churches and cathedrals, and religious art. To fully appreciate the riches of this unique route, look no further than The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago, a fascinating step-by-step guide to the cultural history of the Road for pilgrims, hikers, and armchair travelers alike. Organized geographically, the book covers aspects of the terrain, places of interest, history, artistic monuments, and each town and village's historical relationship to the pilgrimage. The authors have led five student treks along the Road, studying the art, architecture, and cultural sites of the pilgrimage road from southern France to Compostela. Their lectures, based on twenty-five years of pilgrimage scholarship and fieldwork, were the starting point for this handbook.
Journey of Miracles
JOURNEY OF MIRACLES is a travel memoir, describing different countries in different eras. It covers a sixty year period, beginning with 1925 and ending in 1985. In KALLISTE (the most beautiful), Corsica is lovingly described by the author who, as a small child, lived in a mountainside villa with a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside. HAVEN FOR THE RICH AND TITLED describes the good life in the Monte Carlo of the thirties. Next, in THE INTERRUPTED JOURNEY, we visit a small village in eastern France, at the eve of World War II, where the author's cousin was both the village pharmacist and a busy archaeologist. As a consequence of the outbreak of the war, his unearthing of a Roman swimming pool and the adjacent villa had to be discontinued. JOURNEY OF MIRACLES is the author's account of her leaving Occupied France with her family and their journey through Spain to Lisbon, Portugal, to board an American cargo ship for passage to the United States.In NILE CRUISE we have a detailed itinerary of a six hundred mile archaeological tour of Egypt aboard a flat-bottom, wooden river boat - downstream, with the tide, but against the stream of historyTHE ASCENT OF MOUNT ETNA is a demonstration of the author's resolve to fulfill a life-long dream.A most subjective approach characterizes a trip to Bavaria in THE ROMANTIC ROAD, where the author contrasts the beauty of the landscape with the austerity of the Dachau Memorial Museum - site of the oldest Nazi concentration camp.A GLIMPSE BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN describes a visit to Hungary and Czechoslovakia. In Prague, the author watched an anti-American (dubbed as anti-imperialist) program on state-run television. The following day she witnessed an orchestrated street demonstration.SACRED COWS AND MOGHUL PALACES is much in the form of an essay, contrasting Hindu customs and architecture with the majestic buildings of the sixteenth century Islamic rulers of India.Yvonne West織s JOURNEY OF MIRACLES, A TRAVEL MEMOIR (101 pp., Xlibris) takes the reader through one of the two most interesting periods of U.S. history: World War II and its unsettling prelude. Since her family was living in Corsica and Paris, she was in the middle of the drama when the family had to negotiate its way to Spain and then to the U.S.For example, one chapter opens with, "In 1938, during the Munich Scare, when Hitler forced Czechoslovakia to give up the Sudetenland, my sister Caroline and I were sent from Paris to my mother織s east-country cousin, who lived in a small French village, safe from air raids and poison gas."She pens excellent word pictures of such people as her cousin, Tonton Do, the village pharmacist: "He wore a long, white coat over his trousers and waistcoat and always carried a gold watch and chain in his waistcoat pocket. His hobby, though, was archaeology, abetted by an extraordinary power of divination, as you will see."In another section, the memoir shows the tension that could be ever-present: "Once we did hire a Corsican maid, who, unbeknownst to us, was a cousin of the bandit, Romanetti, and in our absence put him and his henchmen up for the night and a terrified Antonio, his family, and the donkey, barricaded themselves inside their house for two days."Her chapters also take the reader to Egypt and India, and in each location she captures the sights, sounds, and nuances of life.This well-written memoir is not trying to follow in the page prints of other books, but, if the readers want to judge whether they would enjoy poring over its pages, they should think in terms of Tom Brokaw織s homage to the heroic generation of WW II and of Frances Mayes織 UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN. (do keep in mind that Corsica, birthplace of Napoleon, is French, but the island offers an exotic locale that a good writer like West is able to bring to life.} (From THE ELECTRONIC WRITE STUFF, April 4, 2000)
Starlight and Storm: The Conquest for the
"One of the great climbers of all time . . . who has discovered through the medium of mountains the true perspective of living." --Sir John Hunt, author of The Conquest of Everest Known for his lyrical writing and his ability to convey not only the dangers of mountaineering but the pure exaltation of the climb, Gaston R矇buffat is among the most well-known and revered Alpinists of all time. He rose to international prominence in 1950 as one of the four principal stalwarts in the first ascent of Annapurna, the highest mountain climbed at that time. Yet his finest feat as a mountaineer was to be the first man to climb all six of the legendary great north faces of the Alps--the Grandes Jorasses, the Piz Badile, the Dru, the Matterhorn, the Cima Grande di Lava-redo, and the Eiger. With this elegant book, first published in 1954, Gaston R矇buffat transformed mountain writing. His insistence on seeing a climb as an act of harmonious communion with the mountain, not a battle waged against it, seemed radical at the time, though R矇buffat's aesthetic has since won the day. Through storms, avalanches, rock fall, unplanned bivouacs, and even the deaths of companions, we follow the Chamonix guide to the altar of his communion, on dark, icy walls that struck terror into the hearts of Europe's finest mountaineers. Nor are these deft narratives mere recitations of dangers faced and obstacles overcome, for R矇buffat pays as keen attention to the joys of comradeship won on these faces as he does to the climbs themselves. In our own day of corporate sponsorships, online expeditions, and eco-vacations, the purity of R矇buffat's vision of the Alps as (in the epithet of the title of another of his books) an "enchanted garden" shines forth in prose as fresh and stylish as any ever lavished on mountaineering.
Walking Austria’s Alps
* The ultimate vacation for more adventurous European travelers * Tours range between four and 11 days, and no camping equipment is required *Tours are easily accessible to towns, villages and roads This is the Austria travelers dream about. Dramatic alpine peaks, secluded valleys, tiny mountain villages, authentic and hearty cuisine, and plenty of opportunities to meet the local people. But this Austria is not to be found on the highways or in the cities; this Austria is found on foot, traveling the vast network of accessible trails and exploring the riches of this country's excellent hut system. Walking Austria's Alps offers eleven treks, ranging from four to eleven days in length, which include nightly stops at a mountain hut where walkers can eat well and sleep in comfort. No technical climbing skills or equipment are necessary, just strong legs and sturdy shoes. The daily itineraries allow plenty of time for interesting detours, climbs on nearby peaks, or simply sitting to admire the scenery.
Reeling in Russia
In the summer of 1996, award-winning journalist Fen Montaigne embarked on a hundred-day, seven-thousand-mile journey across Russia. Traveling with his fly rod, he began his trek in northwestern Russia on the Solovetsky Islands, a remote archipelago that was the birthplace of Stalin's gulag. He ended half a world away as he fished for steelhead trout on the Kamchatka Peninsula, on the shores of the Pacific. His tales of visiting these far-flung rivers are memorable, and at heart, Reeling in Russia is far more than a story of an angling journey. It is a humorous and moving account of his adventures in the madhouse that is Russia today, and a striking portrait that highlights the humanity and tribulations of its people. In the end, the reader is left with the memory of haunted northern landscapes, of vivid sunsets over distant rivers, of the crumbling remains of pre-Revolutionary estates, and a cast of dogged Russians struggling to build a life amid the rubble of the Communist regime.
The Reader’s Companion to Ireland
This uniquely literate guide to the land and people of Eire features choice travel writing by Jan Morris, Richard Condon, Paul Theroux, Michael Crichton, and many others, dating from 1896 to the present. Introduction by the Editor. Map.
