Customer Reviews
The magic of the Mediterranean captured in text and images - By: Serghiou Const, 19 Sep 2008 
The book's characteristics are the elegant, rich in historical & cultural content, insightful but witty & light in touch text & the beautiful photographs of landscape, seascape, buildings, monuments, ruins & works of art which are inextricably interwoven & mutuallly reinforcing;the impact on the reader is not merely additive but truly synergistic.
We travel with the author from the city of his birth, Venice aboard the Black Swan, a renovated 1899 yawl along trading routes of the Venetian Empire visiting the coastline & islands of the Adriatic, Ionian & Aegean seas with Istanbul (formerly Constantinople)the final destination. Some of these lands were former colonies of 'La Serenissima' & we witness its legacy in the form of medieval fortifications & buildings, the umbiquitous symbol of her strength, the winged lion, & her influences on art, architecture & culture. But the main focus is on the lands of indigenous people & their culture, history, art, buildings & monuments & contribution to the Mediterranean & world civilization.
We visit in succession Istria & Dalmatia & its fortified city port of Dubrovnic, its high wallls & bastions commanding the blue sea before moving on to Montenegro & Albania. Then ensues an extensive tour of the island & mainland Greece comprising half of the chapters & size of the book. In the Ionian, we visit Corfu & the Ionian islands to which the Meteora in the mainland are added & offered an awe inspiring view of these precipitous rocks with monasteries perched on their top. The preceding chapter is introduced with possibly the most fascinating photograph in the book featuring the islet of Pontikonissi off Corfu surrounded by the sea with distant mountain ranges presenting Mediterranean at its beautiful best. The chapter on Dephi & Athens is aptly introduced as the cradle of civilization. Athens in particular had not simply a Mediterranean but a truly global impact. In a brief period during the second half of the 5th century BC in an era known as Pericles' golden age a true miracle took place. The Parthenon was built on the Acropolis exemplifying the ideal of classical beauty as an expression of measure & harmony, a similar gratifying evolution took place in the visual arts with the human body captured in movement & acquiring plasticity while this period witnessed also the birth of democracy, philosophy & theatre as an alllegory of the human condition & social life. In Peloponnese we visit the theatre of Epidaurus with its impressive acoustics. And then follow visits in the Aegean of the Cyclades, Dodecanese & Crete where the dazzling Minoan civilization evolved in 2000 BC. The voyage ends in Istanbul with a magnificent photograph of the blue mosque & parts of the Topkapi & Dolmabache palaces. An omission in my judgment is the church of Hagia Sophia of which we are presented with only a fine mosaic of the Virgin & Child in the interior of the church.
The book is visuallly attractive, intellectuallly stimulating & captures the essence of the Mediterranean.
francescos meditweenwan voyage - By: Geraldine Robinson, 28 Aug 2008 This is a wonderful journey, with a man that enjoys life, it made me want to do the exact same thing as him, read, relax & travel with Frankie.
