FREYA STARK"One can only really travel if one lets oneself go and takes what every place brings without trying to turn it into a healthy private pattern of one's own and I suppose that is the difference between travel and tourism."
- Freya Stark |
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ABOUT FREYA STARKDame Freya Stark (1893-1993) was a British-Italian travel writer and explorer, famous for her extraordinary books describing her legendary and fearless wanderings in the Middle East, providing amazing insights into the history and culture. She emerged into the public scene with The Valleys of the Assassins in 1934 but over the next fifty years she produced over 20 travel books, several autobiographies, and eight volumes of letters. The consummate traveler, Stark broke away from her privileged but tumultuous upbringing to be one of the first Western travelers to explore some remote and hazardous regions in the Middle East, often traveling by camel or donkey. She is arguably one of the most remarkable women of her time, and her writing is elegant and inspiring. Stark was awarded a Cross of the British Empire in 1953 and was named a Dame of the British Empire in 1972. She died at the age of 100. Her auto-biography, Passionate Nomad – Freya Stark, is well worth reading.
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A5 RECOMMENDATIONS - FREYA STARK BOOKS
GREAT QUOTES FROM FREYA STARK"It happened one night in this Elburz summer the constellation of Perseus night after night spanned the gap of the pass with his scimitar. He danced in a wind with his earthly brother blew thin from the north and the Caspian Sea. I came to feel his stars as a friendliness and a bond to the gaiety of spaces and the cold of the night. The memory has remained and given the the name of Perseus to this book, in which I have written about things that are beyond our grasp yet visible to all, dear to our hearts and far from our understanding as the constellations; a comfort for the frail light they shed. Without being astronomers, in our separate darkness, we rejoice in them, and from our caves, our twilights of belief and ignorant names and lonely journeys, feel that we are a fellowship that looks to the same stars."
- Freya Stark, Perseus in the Wind “To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world. You are surrounded by adventure. You have no idea of what is in store for you, but you will, if you are wise and know the art of travel, let yourself go on the stream of the unknown and accept whatever comes in the spirit in which the gods may offer it. For this reason your customary thoughts, all except the rarest of your friends, even most of your luggage - everything, in fact, which belongs to your everyday life, is merely a hindrance. The tourist travels in his own atmosphere like a snail in his shell and stands, as it were, on his own perambulating doorstep to look at the continents of the world. But if you discard all this, and sally forth with a leisurely and blank mind, there is no knowing what may not happen to you.” - Freya Stark, Baghdad Sketches INTERESTING LINKS:
FREYA STARK - YOUTUBE |