A Thing of Beauty: Travels in Mythical and Modern Greece

‘There’s an infectious enthusiasm and self-deprecating authority to Fiennes’s insights and he’s a most agreeable companion.’ Guardian on Footnotes

It’s now a golden age for these tales – they crop up in novels, films and popular culture. But what’s the modern relevance of Theseus, Hera and Pandora? And what’s to be seen now at the places where heroes fought and gods once quarrelled?

Fiennes travels to the sites of some of the most famous Greek myths, on the trail of hope, beauty and a new way of seeing what we have done to our world. Fiennes walks through landscapes – stunning and spoiled – on the trail of dancing activists and Arcadian shepherds, finds the ‘most beautiful beach in Greece’, consults the Oracle, and loses himself in the cities, remote villages and ruins of this storied land.