Eyewitness travel

"Explore Wellington, New Zealand's capital and third largest urban area, a place where the fine dining is matched only by the views accompanying your meal. Everyone is catered for in Wellington though, from visitors looking for a serious dose of culture to those who come searching for the outdoor activities that New Zealand is famous for. Magnificent Fiordland is one of the largest national parks in the world and home to the impossibly national parks in the world and home to the impossibly beautiful Milford Sound. Spend time here enjoying some of the most awe inspriring scenery to be found anywhere on earth. World-class vineyards flourish across the gorgeous Marlborough region, there are over 40 wineries in the city of Blenheim alone, so sit back, take in the scenery and enjoy a well-deserved glass of Sauvignon Blanc. Relax away from it all along the beautiful, tranquil East Cape. Here Gisborne, also known as 'The Chardonnay Capital of New Zealand', is the closest city in the world to the International Date Line and, therefore, the 'First to See The Light'."--Back cover.

John Updike's sixteenth novel takes place in a stylized Brazil where almost anything is possible, if you are young and in love. Tristao Raposo, a nineteen-year-old black child of the Rio slums, and Isabel Leme, an eighteen-year-old upper-class white girl, meet on Copacabana Beach; their flight into marriage takes them to the farthest reaches of Brazil's wild west. Privation, violence, captivity, and reversals of fortune afflict them; his mother curses them, her father harries them with hirelings, and neither lover is absolutely faithful. Yet Tristao and Isabel hold to the faith that each is the other's fate for life, as they pass - in Shakespeare's phrase - "through nature to eternity." Spanning twenty-two years, from the mid-Sixties to the late Eighties, Brazil surprises and embraces the reader with its celebration of passion, loyalty, and New World innocence.

Includes cutaways, floorplans and reconstructions of the must-see sites, and street-by-street maps of all the cities and towns. This guide helps you discover everything region by region; from local festivals and markets to day trips around the countryside.

"'Sicily,' said Goethe, 'is the key to everything.' The birthplace of Archimedes, Georgio de Chirico, and Muhammad al-Idrisi, it is the largest island in the Mediterranean. The stepping-stone between Europe and Africa, the gateway between the East and the West, the link between the Latin world and the Greek, at once a stronghold, clearing-house and observation-point, it has been fought over and occupied in turn by all the great powers that have striven over the centuries to extend their dominion across the Middle Sea. John Julius Norwich offers a vivid, erudite, page-turning account of an island and the remarkable kings, queens, and tyrants who fought to rule it. From its beginnings as a feared Greek city-state to its rise as a wealthy, multicultural trading hub during the Crusades, to its rebellion against Italian unification and the rise of the Mafia, the story of Sicily is rich with extraordinary moments and dramatic characters. Norwich outlines the surprising influence Sicily has had on world history--the Roman fascination with Greek culture dates back to their sack of Sicily--and tells the story of one of the world's most kaleidoscopic cultures in a galvanizing, contemporary way"--

Discusses the nature of loving relationships in the context of traditional psychological and spiritual insights.