Book description
This is Patrick Leigh Fermor's spellbinding part-travelogue, part inspired evocation of a part of Greece's past. Joining him in the Mani, one of Europe's wildest and most isolated regions, cut off from the rest of Greece by the towering Taygettus mountain range and hemmed in by the Aegean and Ionian…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Mani as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This book is a gem for lovers of Greece and of superlative English prose.
For me the book is far and away the best evocation of a wild and remote part of Greece that I got to know and treasure when tramping through its olive fields in search of ancient inscriptions. Leigh Fermor was incapable of writing a dull sentence.
His imagination allied with what he observed himself in his wanderings combine to bring out all the strangeness of Mani’s history of brigands and vendettas, of villages bristling with defensive towers and of fishermen descended—perhaps—from Byzantine emperors.
From Tony's list on travel in Greece, ancient and modern.
Greece has never held an ‘Our Favourite Foreigner’ contest, but if they did, I suspect Patrick Leigh Fermor would win hands down. While fighting with the Resistance in Crete during WWII, he led one of the most daring missions of the conflict—abducting the German Commander of Crete in broad daylight.
First published in 1958, his travel book on the wild Mani region is so evocative, adventurous, wise, and affectionate it’s not surprising he decided to spend the rest of his life there in Kardamyli. His writing is a deep well of inspiration: it’s no wonder he has been called ‘the…
From Dana's list on evocative travel about Greece.
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