Tony Perrottet - Pagan Holiday: On the Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists

Perrottet succeeds as entertainer. Quite engaging There is not a dull page in this book.

The Seattle Times

Required reading A charming popular history of ancient Roman sight-seeing.

Forbes FYI

The single most unexpected revelation in [Pagan Holiday] is the under standing of just how little impact two millennia have had on the tourist experience. The fun lies in the juxtaposition of past and present. Entertaining a fascinating travelogue. Perrottet freely admits that this itinerary remains the most popular tourist journey in the world. He makes it easy to see why.

The Denver Post

A brilliantly researched and beautifully written travel diary and history about tourists, ancient and modern, traipsing around the Mediterranean in search of glorious pasts What makes Perrottet's history so compelling is that while he colorfully re-creates the travel experience, he doesn't gloss over its ironies, economics or politics.

Rocky Mountain News

Retracing the ancients' strangely familiar steps, Perrottet finds some thing truly rare: a fresh, funny take on this beaten path.

Outside

A wonderful, offbeat, illuminating book written by a wonderful, offbeat, illuminating author, Pagan Holiday chronicles the original road trip, the ur-journey that sprung a Pandora's box of Kerouacs and wood-paneled cross-country station wagons. A great read!

M ICHAEL P ATERNITI, author of Driving Mr. Albert

Delightful With considerable wit, the author brings contemporary similes into his account, making an amusing and lively, as well as erudite and factually sound, account. For all their misadventures, Tony and Les had a grand time as will the reader.

The Washington Times

Where else does the past come alive with such play and wit as in this splendidly original book? Here you can learn that ancient Roman tourists would cancel all travel plans if they dreamed about owls or bears; that they would travel all the way to Delphi in Greece, only to ask Apollo's oracle whether or not they had been poisoned; or that the satirist Juvenal was an insomniac thanks to the evening street traffic in Rome. Just enter this volume and enjoy Tony Perrottet's Grand Tour of antiquity.

N ANCY M ILFORD , author of Savage Beauty and Zelda

Makes the most of an inspired notion A charming, evocative account A rollicking Roman holiday.

Kirkus Reviews

Just when it seemed certain that travel writers had exhausted the pantheon of destinations, Perrottet offers a fresh perspectiveby taking the road most traveled. [Perrottet's] wry personal account blends seamlessly with his historical narrative. [A] real triumph.

Publishers Weekly

Roll over, Homer. Here's the ancient world as we've never seen it before: through the eyes of the original Roman sightseers, as related by a besieged travel writer. Learned, hilarious, hair-raisingand with the best last line since Joyce's Ulysses.

J OHN C OLAPINTO, contributing editor, Rolling Stone, and author of As Nature Made Him

Who would've believed that today's camera-toting, fannypacked hordes could be blamed on the ancient Romans? Pagan Holiday regales the reader with wonderfully quirky insights about the world's oldest tourists. Perrottet succeeds where most failnamely, in writing about travel and history in a way that's witty, smart, and fun.

J ASON W ILSON, series editor of The Best American Travel Writing

A fascinating and often humorous look at a world long gone and the tourist culture that has grown up around it Perrottet's writing sparkles.

Library Journal

What really distinguishes [Pagan Holiday] is its texture. [Perrottet's] cultural comment is rewarding on both the ancient and modern. Breezy, informative never dull.

The Columbus Dispatch

Clever and illuminating.

The Times (Trenton)

Brimming with humor, adventure, anecdotal tidbits, and fascinating historical information, this delightful travelogue offers a unique twist on some classic journeys.

Booklist

Smart, funny, evocative, and beguilingly unassuming. Tony Perrottet pulls us deep into a fascinating ancient worldand back out againin an inventive travel book quite unlike any other.

C HRISTIANE B IRD , author of Neither East Nor West

A hugely entertaining, remarkably informative romp through the Mediterranean past and present. Tony Perrottet redeems a part of the world that I'd always written off as being too glutted with tourists to be of interest. Now I know the truth: it's always been glutted with tourists, and that is one of the reasons it's so interesting. Compulsive reading!

L AWRENCE M ILLMAN, author of An Evening Among Headhunters and Last Places

Contents

PART ONE:

PART TWO:

PART THREE:

PART FOUR:

PART FIVE:

PART SIX:

PART SEVEN:

PART EIGHT:

Reconstruction of an ancient Roman world map, from the Description of Dionysius the Guide, second century A.D .

Jupiter's Panorama