Can-Cans, Cats and Cities of Ash (Penguin Great Journeys)
This is an engaging and irreverent account of Mark Twain 'Grand Tour' - a good tonic from the more po-faced travellogs that make up most of this 'Great Journeys' collection.
It is also of interest as direction of vision is reversed with Twain giving an explorers account of the exotica of Europe - rather than a European account of natives elsewhere.
His account of visiting the Acropolis by night brought up for me something meloncholic about our current age of mass tourism. While I could go and stand in the same spot as Twain I doubt I would be able to have that same experience of wonder - there great sites of the world today (and the majority of minor ones) are too sanitised and packaged, the obligatory audio guide might add a few tip bits of historical gossip but I find it divorces you from the possibility of a deeper and more visceral encounter with a place.
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