On the Shores of the Mediterranean

Fülszöveg

'The grand object of travelling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean', Dr Johnson is recorded as saying.
All the world is heir to the Mediterranean. All the world is her debtor. A million square miles in extent, it carries the waters of the Adantic to die foot of die mountains of Lebanon and is fed by die rivers of die Alps and by the rivers of the African equatorial forests.
It is unfortunate for posterity diat Dr Johnson succeeded in getting only as far as Paris. Eric Newby was more fortunate. Although no stranger to the Mediterranean or its shores (he nearly drowned in it during die War), he set off round it in a clockwise direction, visiting most of die fifteen countries that surround it and seeing en route a remarkable variety of people, places and things.
Equipped with a pair of size twelve feet and, in his wife Wanda, a companion but for whose wisdom he would almost certainly have ended up in a coffin, a gaol or even a madhouse, Newby investigates the wonders of the... Tovább

Fülszöveg

'The grand object of travelling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean', Dr Johnson is recorded as saying.
All the world is heir to the Mediterranean. All the world is her debtor. A million square miles in extent, it carries the waters of the Adantic to die foot of die mountains of Lebanon and is fed by die rivers of die Alps and by the rivers of the African equatorial forests.
It is unfortunate for posterity diat Dr Johnson succeeded in getting only as far as Paris. Eric Newby was more fortunate. Although no stranger to the Mediterranean or its shores (he nearly drowned in it during die War), he set off round it in a clockwise direction, visiting most of die fifteen countries that surround it and seeing en route a remarkable variety of people, places and things.
Equipped with a pair of size twelve feet and, in his wife Wanda, a companion but for whose wisdom he would almost certainly have ended up in a coffin, a gaol or even a madhouse, Newby investigates the wonders of the Mediterranean as it is and as it was. He plumbs the mysteries of the underworld of Naples and of one of its more lucrative subsidiary industries, the funeral business. He investigates the relative merits of Turkish baths. He scales Mount Olympus and the Great Pyramid (the former in thick fog, the latter incurring a fine), travels through Second World War battiefields in Libya (still infested with a million mines) and takes part in a penitential procession in Seville.
Eric Newby has been compared to the much-travelled Greek Eudoxus, 'a man inclined to admire the peculiarities of regions and, also, not uninformed about them'. He is also possessed of senses alive to everything he encounters: littie of significance and stiU less of the absurd escapes his eye. It is doubtful if any other book about the Mediterranean conveys with the same vitality the sheer variety of life, landscape, atmosphere and history that exists to this day on its shores.
Vissza