On the Shores of the Mediterranean. Eric Newby

      ERIC NEWBY

       On the Shores of the Mediterranean

       Dedication

      To Wanda, the only item of essential equipment – apart from a Rolex watch (boiled in a stew by Afghans to test its waterproof qualities) – not lost, stolen or simply worn out in the course of some thirty years of travel together.

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

Dedication

Map

I ITALY

A Tuscan Vineyard

In the Streets of Naples

An Evening in Venice

II THE ADRIATIC

On the Way to the Balkans

A Night in Montenegro

Albania Stern and Wild

       III GREECE

       Grecian Shores

       In the Steps of Ali Pasha

       Monasteries of the Air

       The Ascent of Mount Olympus

       IV TURKEY

       A View of the Hellespont

       Baths and Bazaars

       The Harem at Topkapi

       The Plain of Troy

       An Encounter with Nomads

       V THE LEVANT

       Jerusalem

       VI NORTH AFRICA

       In and Out of a Pyramid

       Return to Tobruk

       Into a Minefield

       Not Quite Leptis Magna

       On the Edge of the Sahara

       View from a Hill

       VII RETURN TO EUROPE

       Imperial Rock

       Holy Week in Seville

       Dinner at the Negresco

       The Last Vintage

       Bibliography

       Index

       Acknowledgements

       About the Author

       Praise

       Also by the Author

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       Map

       PART ONE ITALY

       A Tuscan Vineyard

      When people in England and America ask about our house in Italy and we tell them that it is in northern Tuscany, their eyes light up, because Tuscany is one of the parts of Italy that the British and the Americans know about, or think they do. For most of them who have visited it, Tuscany conjures up that rather open-cast country permanently suffused in golden light that forms the background of so many fourteenth-century paintings, country in which