The Pillars of Hercules

Table of Contents

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Map

Contents

Epigraph

1. The Cable Car to the Rock of Gibraltar

2. The “Mare Nostrum” Express to Alicante

3. The M.V. Punta Europa to Mallorca

4. The “Virgen De Guadalupe” Express to Barcelona and Beyond

5. “Le Grand Sud” to Nice

6. The Ferry ÎLe De Beauté to Corsica

7. The Ferry Ichnusa to Sardinia

8. The Ferry Torres to Sicily

9. The Ferry Villa to Calabria

10. The Ferry Clodia from Chioggia

11. The Ferry Liburnija to Zadar

12. The Ferry Venezia to Albania

13. The Seabourn Spirit to Istanbul

14. The M.V. Akdeniz: Through the Levant

15. The 7:20 Express to Latakia

16. The Ferry Sea Harmony to Greece

17. The Ferry El Loud III to Kerkennah

18. To Morocco on the Ferry Boughaz

About the Author

“THEROUX, WHEREVER HE IS,

IS ALWAYS WORTH READING.”

—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“[Theroux’s] observations come in hilarious quips and thought-provoking bolts…. Disdaining museums, ruins and ‘famous graves,’ he seeks out human encounters, from rich retirees on a luxury cruise to ragged beggars in Albania, from intellectual writers such as Naguib Mahfouz and Paul Bowles to the punks of Cagliari.”

—The Kansas City Star

“Vivid … Theroux flourishes in the gritty texture of daily life in all these ports, where he eats the food, sleeps in the hotels, eats in the low-rent cafes that most locals do—and, like them, seeks the water.”

—San Francisco Chronicle

“Powerful … A nimble, multilayered armchair journey, bristling with sights, sounds, smells, anecdotes, brief encounters, snippets of erudition, reading suggestions, impromptu decisions, moments of danger, bursts of indignation, sudden ecstasies … Theroux’s keen wit and descriptive gifts are in peak form.”

—The Sunday Oregonian

“Travel writing at its eccentric best—a mix of irony, adventure lucidity, and cross-grained crankiness.”

—Entertainment Weekly

“In the best tradition of the 19th-century Grand Tour, Theroux’s travels provide an unsentimental education in history and human nature, drawn not from museums and monuments but from a varied, and occasionally surprising, landscape peopled with an array of memorable characters. Certainly there is lots of meaty material to work with: centuries of art and architecture, classical myths and contemporary writers, the constant movement of emigrants, refugees, and travelers. And Theroux rises wonderfully to the occasion.”

—Islands Magazine

“A beautiful adventure.”

—Booklist

(starred review)

By the Same Author

FICTION

Waldo

Fong and the Indians

Girls at Play

Jungle Lovers

Sinning with Annie

Saint Jack

The Black House

The Family Arsenal

The Consul’s File

A Christmas Card

Picture Palace

Londom Snow

World’s End

The Mosquito Coast

The London Embassy

Half Moon Street

O-Zone

My Secret History

Chicago Loop

Millroy the Magician

My Other Life

Kowloon Tong

Hotel Honolulu

CRITICISM

V. S. Naipaul

NONFICTION

The Great Railway Bazaar

The Old Patagonian Express

The Kingdom by the Sea

Sailing Through China

Sunrise with Seamonsters

The Imperial Way

Riding the Iron Rooster

To the Ends of the Earth

The Happy Isles of Oceania

Fresh Air Fiend

Sir Vidia’s Shadow

A Fawcett Book

Published by The Random House Publishing Group

Copyright © 1995 by Cape Cod Scriveners Company

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Excerpt from “At Algeciras—A Meditation upon Death,” from The Poems of W. B. Yeats. A New Edition, by Richard J. Fenneran, reprinted with the permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc., copyright © 1933 by Macmillan Publishing Company, renewed by Bertha Georgie Yeats, in the U.S., and Michael Yeats in the U.K. and Canada.

Excerpts of the The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Robert Fitzgerald, copyright © 1961, 1963 by Robert Fitzgerald and renewed 1989 by Benedict R. C. Fitzgerald. Reprinted by permission of Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc.