The Arab equivalent of Marco Polo, Sheikh Ibn Battuta (1304-77) set out as a young man on a pilgrimage to Mecca that ended 27 years and 75,000 miles later.The only medieval traveler known to have visited the lands of every Muslim ruler of his time, Ibn Battuta was born into a family of highly respected religious judges and educated as a theologian. Leaving his native city of Tangier in 1326, he traveled — over the next several years &a ...
The daughter of a country parson, Isabella Bird was advised to travel for her health. Bird's compliance with her doctor's orders took her to the wildest regions of the American West, Malaysia, Kurdistan, Persia, the Moroccan desert, and China, among other places. One of nine popular accounts of her adventures around the world, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan traces the intrepid Victorian explorer's 1878 excursion into the back country of ...
Hilaire Belloc's best work — according to the author, as well as most critics — The Path to Rome is less concerned with Rome itself than with a pilgrim's journey to the Eternal City. A spirited Catholic apologist, Belloc traveled on foot from Toul (near Nancy), France, and crossed the Alps and the Apennines in order to, in his words, «see all Europe which the Christian Faith has saved.» Afterward, he turned his pen ...
Impelled by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure and aided by an extraordinary facility in Eastern languages, Sir Richard Burton (1821-90) was one of the great traveler-explorers of history. He was the first European to enter the capital of Somaliland and the first to discover the Great Lakes of Central Africa. He was also an Orientalist of the first rank.But it is for his pilgrimage in 1853 to Mecca and Medina and the most sacrosanct shrines ...
In 1519, Ferdinand Magellan, leading an expedition of five ships and over 270 men, set sail from Spain in search of the Spice Islands. Three years later, one ship returned to port with just 18 men. Magellan was not among the survivors, having been killed in the Philippines. But the remainder of his party, quite inadvertently, had been first to circumnavigate the world.One of the survivors of the voyage was Antonio Pigafetta, a young Italian nobl ...
Born to transcend the social constraints of Victorian England, Gertrude Bell left the comforts of her privileged life for the unconventional — but thrilling — world of the Middle East. One of the first women to graduate from Oxford, she traveled to Persia and became passionately drawn to the Arab people, the language, and their architecture. A skilled archeologist, historian, and linguist, Bell traveled the world and wrote co ...
Bird (1831-1904) recounts her rugged passage through the Himalayas by horseback and her four-month sojourn amid «the pleasantest of people.» Bird's evocative accounts of Tibetan ceremonies, decorations, costumes, and music, along with her vivid descriptions of palaces, temples, and monasteries, offer rare glimpses of a vanished world. 21 black-and-white illustrations. ...
For Americans, Cuba has been the forbidden fruit–a skin of Detroit sheet metal covering a center of tasty rum, swirling cigar smoke and sandy beaches. <br><br>Pointed prose, and over 200 pictures, tempt you to take a bite out of major cites and nibble on hidden beaches. Unvarnished opinions, with a uniquely American perspective, guide you to warm accommodations, fine food, stirring sights and sizzling salsa. <br><b ...
I first visited Yosemite Valley 70 years ago, and revisited the Valley many times since. But over the past half century, I've become distraught over the commercial plundering of this national treasure–I'm heartbroken by the crowding, the traffic, and the proliferation of inappropriate construction projects. This book spells out how we the people can take back the Valley and return it to nature. ...
