Purple-carpeted street
This is an Arcadian dream of Leigh Ferro's, drawing copiously on his outrageously learned grasp of Byzantine aristocratic titles and...
Ouzo-swilling fisherman
Leigh Fermor at one point starts day-dreaming he has discovered the rightful Emperor of Byzantium in the form of an...
Rough-hewn peninsulars
A rugged description of all-enduring peasants who survive in a brutal landscape.
'The three young fruiterers ... seemed queerly townish...
Seldom-failing blessings
A lasting impression from Leigh Fermor's Mani is inescapable heat, from which any respite is a gift. I also like...
Sun-refracting facet
Mani is a stark and unforgiving landscape, conveyed with sharp-edged precision by Leigh Fermor.
'But there were no bridges or...
Cactus-haunted emptiness
One of the features that vibrates through Leigh Fermor's writing on the Mani is the blinding light and heat, compounded...
Beam-borne planks
A poetic description of an ancient and abandoned bell tower; somehow 'beam-borne' implies flying rather than static, and I liked...
Light-skinned Yemenite
This describes Leigh Fermor's first incursion into the Mani, after having been warned by the rest of Greece that going...
Shqip-speaking Atticans
Intrigued by this curious linguistic geographic cocktail, I have learned that Shqip is Albanian and Sfax is a city in...
Secret-seeming combe
'Secret-seeming' promises quiet landings of a boat shingling onto a beach, or morning departures. 'Combe' is curious in the context...
Skull-like blankness
A blindingly white description of a sun-parched landscape. Elsewhere Leigh Fermor conjures another type of blankness, that of a face,...
Brittle-looking lorry
I imagine a clapped-out lorry with rusted, flaking panels, paint-stripped by the endless sun. And watermelons for thirsty Maniots reminds...
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