Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Nicholas Woodsworth has travelled the LIQUID CONTINENT in search of the true Mediterraneans, who if lesser in number these days, continue to use their physical senses in ways that most of us have forgotten. ... [They] answer to the strong flavours and sensations of the landscapes they grow up in, to family and community, to the cyclical rhythms of the seasons, to routines of daily work, to old habits sustained through the ages. In the end it is such ties which weave the web that gives Mediterranean life its strength and texture. Woodsworth was particularly attracted by the inhabitants of the old ports on the fringe of the LIQUID CONTINENT. I was drawn to down-at-heel places with seedy reputations. They had their own sort of romance. It wasn t the pimps, the petty crooks, professional drinkers and other harbourside fauna that attracted me. There was something in the air of dissolution and decline blowing through seaport life that I found irresistible - with it came regret and a faint whiff of things long gone and now irretrievable. In the past there was nothing like the ports of the eastern Mediterranean and therefore started his journey in Alexandria. Two thousand years ago Alexandria was one of the greatest cities in the world, a place of luxury and learning. This is the first in a trilogy of travelogues. Volume II and III will tell the story of Woodsworth's travels over-land, along the Eastern Mediterranean coast and sojourns in Venice and Istanbul. The three volumes can be read separately, but will together be an even more riveting read.
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