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Myriad wonderful characters populate the pages of Anne Mustoe's fascinating book as she pedals along three very different, but equally evocative, roads - the Amber Route from the Baltic to the Adriatic, the Santa Fe Trail from the Missouri River to New Mexico and the Pilgrims' Way of St James from Le Puy to Santiago de Compostela. Battling against ferocious winds in Jutland, blizzards in the Rockies, traffic jams of cyclists along the Danube and menus in Czech, Hungarian and Basque, Mustoe survives with her usual fortitude and wry humour, even when she is knocked off her bike by a short-sighted nonagenarian in a Fiat Panda.
Throughout history, precious stones have inspired passions and poetry, quests and curses, sacred writings and unsacred actions. In this scintillating book, journalist Victoria Finlay embarks on her own globe-circling search for the real stories behind some of the gems we prize most. Blending adventure travel, geology, exciting new research, and her own irresistible charm, Finlay has fashioned a treasure hunt for some of the most valuable, glamorous, and mysterious substances on earth. With the same intense curiosity and narrative flair she displayed in her widely-praised book Color, Finlay journeys from the underground opal churches of outback Australia to the once pearl-rich rivers of Scotland; from the peridot mines on an Apache reservation in Arizona to the remote ruby mines in the mountains of northern Burma. She risks confronting scorpions to crawl through Cleopatra’s long-deserted emerald mines, tries her hand at gem cutting in the dusty Sri Lankan city where Marco Polo bartered for sapphires, and investigates a rumor that fifty years ago most of the world’s amber was mined by prisoners in a Soviet gulag. Jewels is a unique and often exhilarating voyage through history, across cultures, deep into the earth’s mantle, and up to the glittering heights of fame, power, and wealth. From the fabled curse of the Hope Diamond, to the disturbing truths about how pearls are cultured, to the peasants who were once executed for carrying amber to the centuries-old quest by magicians and scientists to make a perfect diamond, Jewels tells dazzling stories with a wonderment and brilliance truly worthy of its subjects.
What is it that is motivating thousands of people to leave behind the comfort and securities of home, put heavy boots on their feet and a pack on their backs, and head off to walk the route known as the Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. James, following in the footsteps of the hundreds of thousands of people who have walked the Camino down through the centuries? In 2014, Vivianne Flintoff took an extended leave of absence from her place of employment to walk both the Camino de Santiago and the Camino Finisterre. With her husband, Bruce, she began the seven-week, nine-hundred-kilometer (five hundred miles) walk at St-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France, crossed the Pyrenees, and walked the French route to Santiago de Compostela. Two days later, Vivianne and Bruce put their boots and packs back on and headed off to walk the remaining one hundred kilometers (sixty-eight miles) to Finisterre on the Atlantic Coast, to the beach where legend has it that St. James preached and to where his disciples brought back his decapitated body. In Kiwi on the Camino: A Walk that Changed My Life, Vivianne courageously, honestly, and with humor tells of the pain, (she badly sprained her left ankle just three days before beginning the Camino), fears, anxieties, challenges, fun, and friendships encountered along the Way of St. James. Her life is radically changed at the completion of this epic walk. Viviannes meditations shine light upon her inner criticisms, and gradually, with each step, she lets go of self-judgment and becomes self-compassionate. Vivianne comes to a place of life transformation, where she is no longer prepared to live a highly stressed life. Her journey speaks to the many people struggling to juggle the complex demands that a contemporary life requires.
In her brand-new travelogue, intrepid ex-headmistress and bestselling author Anne Mustoe dusts off the bicycle clips once more and embarks on a remarkable journey through South America. Following in the bike tracks of Che Guevara, Anne retraces the route this iconic revolutionary figure once tread, as documented in the famous Motorcycle Diaries. A second route takes her to Potosi, the highest city in the world, as she travels to the Mountain of Silver. Beautifully written and wonderfully evocative, Che Guevara and the Mountain of Silver charts an epic journey by bike and train through South America's most colourful and historically interesting areas.
'Glorious . . . anecdote and information accumulate with marvellous abundance and a passionate sense of the fascination of jewels' Spectator Amber is the tears of prehistoric trees. One gem links Queen Victoria and a skeleton. Cleopatra drank a pearl to win a bet. A man turned into a diamond. When we put on jewels, what are we really wearing? Victoria Finlay travels the world to tell the true stories of these miraculous oddities of nature. 'Filled with eye-catching incidents and stories . . . Finlay's evidence glitters from every page' Sunday Telegraph 'A fascinating and exhaustive travelogue' Times Literary Supplement
Before the last quarter of the nineteenth century, people who wanted to travel independently either walked or rode horses. Then a newly invented machine changed forever the nature of personal transportation. The cycle—self-propelled bicycles, tricycles, and tandems—allowed almost anyone to travel around town, around their region, and around the world. While dramatic developments in equipment, clothing, road surfaces, and amenities make the physicality of cycling much different from the earlier era, the experience of cycling has seen little change. The Self-Propelled Voyager: How the Cycle Revolutionized Travel recounts how a transportation innovation opened the world for not only those who made the journey but also for the armchair travelers who read with interest the cyclists’ accounts of faraway places. Following a brief history of the development of the cycle, this book describes the exploits of long-distance riders who wrote of their experiences, their triumphs, and their tragedies. Duncan R. Jamieson chronicles their journeys, their personal stories, and the times in which they lived, revealing that, despite the continuing rise and fall of cycling interest, people continue to enjoy traveling in the slow lane. Drawing on books and articles by the women and men who rode and wrote of their travels, The Self-Propelled Voyager also features photographs from the 1880s up to the modern day, illustrating the development of the cycle through history. Accessibly written yet comprehensive in its coverage, this book will interest not only the cycling enthusiast but historians focusing on sport and sport tourism as well.
Features bibliographical, biographical and contact information for living authors worldwide who have at least one English publication. Entries include name, pseudonyms, addresses, citizenship, birth date, specialization, career information and a bibliography.
Published for the first time in the U.S. - one of the two diaries on which the upcoming movie The Motorcycle Diaries is based - the moving and at times hilarious account of Che Guevara and Alberton Granado's eight-month tour of South America in 1952. In 1952 Alberto Granado, a young doctor, and his friend Ernesto Guevara, a 23-year-old medical student from a distinguished Buenos Aires family, decided to explore their continent. They set off from Cordoba in Agentina on a Norton 500cc motorbike traveled through Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela. The duo's adventures vary from the suspenseful (stowing away on a cargo ship, exploring Incan ruins) to the comedic (falling in love, drinking, fighting...) to the serious (volunteering as firemen and at a leper colony). They worked as day laborers along the way - as soccer coaches, medical assistants, and furniture movers. The poverty and exploitation of the native population started the process that was to turn Ernesto - the debonair, fun-loving student - into Che, the revolutionary who had a profound impact on the history of several nations. Originally published in Spanish in Cuba in 1978, the first English translation was published by Random House UK in 2003. The movie, based on Granado's and Che's diaries, directed by Walter Salles (Central Station, Behind the Sun), was produced by Robert Redford and others. Shown at the Sundance Film Festival, it generated great reviews and a frenzied auction for distribution rights, which was won by Focus Features. Granado, now 82, was a consultant to Salles during the production.
The British winter: rain, heavy; trains, cancelled; Christmas, expensive. How many times have you thought that there might be an alternative to grey skies and cold weather- one that will not break the bank? Wintering abroad used to be the preserve of the very wealthy, yet since the advent of cheaper, easier travel, anyone who has the time to spare can escape the winter... and even save some money in the process, No one knows more about ascaping the British winter than acclaimed travel write Anne Mustoe, who has happily spent every Christmas overseas since 1987. Internationally renowned for her entertaining and heroic journeys cycling around the world, the irrepressible Ms Mustoe has put together an invaluable, no-nonesense reference book that is essential reading for anyone who is thinking of fleeing the British Isles during the winter months. Practical and thorough, Escaping The Winter is packed with all the advice you need to successfully make your escape, whether you crave rural isolation in a mountain hideaway or want to mix with the locals in a busy small town, including: - Choosing the right destination for you budget and requirements - Managing your finances and letting your property - Packing for an extended holiday - Making new friends and staying in touch with those back home - Staying safe and healthy - Getting around. If you thought of another British winter fills you with dread, then this is the bood for you.