The ancient Romans were responsible for many remarkable achievements—Roman numerals, straight roads—but one of their lesser-known contributions was the creation of the tourist industry. The first society in history to enjoy safe and easy travel, Romans embarked in droves on the original Grand Tour, traveling from the lost city of Troy to the top of the Acropolis in Athens, from the fallen Colossus at Rhodes to the Pyramids of Egypt, ending with the obligatory Nile cruise to the very edge of the Empire. And as travel writer Tony Per-rottet discovers, the popularity of this route has only increased with time. Perrottet first discovered the origins of this ancient itinerary when he came across the world’s oldest surviving guidebook in the New York Public Library. Intrigued by the possibility of re-creating the tour, and wanting to seize the opportunity for one last excursion with Les, his pregnant girlfriend, before their lives changed forever, Perrottet set off to rediscover life as an ancient Roman. He was armed for travel with only the essentials—a backpack full of ancient texts and a second-century highway map reproduced on a twenty-foot-long scroll. As he retraced the historic route, fighting the crowds and reading aloud to Les two-thousand-year-old descriptions of bad food, inadequate accommodations, and pushy tour guides, it became clear to him that tourism has actually changed very little since Caesar’s day. A lively blend of fascinating historical anecdotes and hilarious personal encounters, interspersed with irreverent and often eerily prescient quotes from the ancients, Route 66 A.D. vividly recaptures the magic of the Roman Empire in all its complexity and wonder. From Rome to Naples to Greece and the islands of the Aegean Sea, then on into the land of Cleopatra, ancient Romans followed the path of their conquering armies in search of adventure. Like 21st-century sightseers, Roman tourists were hustled in and out of temples by professional tour guides and treated to sideshows by clever priests who charged hefty prices for a glimpse of a Cyclops's skull or a Gorgon's hair. They were also subjected to bad food and hard mattresses in roadside inns from Pompeii to Aswan. To prove that little has changed over the centuries, New York Times travel writer Perrottet takes us on a modern-day tour of the Roman Empire. Accompanied by his girlfriend, Perrottet follows the map drawn by Roman war hero Marcus Agrippa, traveling from Rome to Egypt along many of the same routes used by Horace and Pliny. The result is 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 with descriptions of modern and ancient misadventures. The accompanying photographs enhance the narrative and help make this book a good purchase for any library. Mary V. Welk, Chicago Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. This retrospective travel guide and contemporary travel memoir pays tribute to intrepid tourists of the past and the present. Unearthing a copy of the world's oldest surviving guidebook, the author, a veteran travel writer, and his girlfriend decide to trace the routes and visit the exotic destinations of the Roman Empire. Embarking on an intercontinental odyssey encompassing stops in Greece, Turkey, and Egypt, Perrottet interweaves and contrasts his modern-day experiences with those of the ancient Romans. Brimming with humor, adventure, anecdotal tidbits, and fascinating historical information, this delightful travelogue offers a unique twist on some classic journeys. Margaret Flanagan Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "A wonderful, off-beat, illuminating book written by a wonderful, off-beat, illuminating author, Route 66 A.D. chronicles the original road trip, the ur-journey that sprung a Pandora's box of Kerouacs and wood-panelled cross-country station wagons. A great read!" -Michael Paterniti, author of Driving Mr. Albert "Where else does the past come alive with such play and wit as in this splendidly original book? Just enter this volume and enjoy Tony Perrottet's Grand Tour of antiquity." -Nancy Milford, author of Savage Beauty and Zelda "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-raising--and with the best last line since Joyce's Ulysses ." -John Colapinto, author of As Nature Made Him "Who would've believed that today's camera-toting, fannypacked hordes could be blamed on the ancient Romans? Route 66 A.D. regales the reader on every page with wonderfully quirky insights about the world's earliest tourists. Perrottet succeeds where most fail--namely, in writing about travel and history in a way that's witty, smart, and fun." -Jason Wilson, series editor of The Best American Travel Writing "Smart, funny, evocative, and beguilingly