Before the convenient days of computers and instant messages, the world was very different. People still travelled the world. Many were gentlemen travellers who did a “Tour of Europe”, sometimes accompanied by sketch artists and occasionally their wives. Their letters home to friends and family described their numerous escapades and discoveries. They were written by hand and sent on what was sometimes a long journey to get home, many now lie in archives waiting to be stumbled upon. These Gentlemen travellers often wrote journals too, documenting the places they visited, the people they met and interesting things they saw. Many of the journals now lay forgotten in archives, museums, libraries, and personal collections. If you can find them however, they open up a world of information and are incredibly useful for research purposes. These journals were so important, not only to people at the time, but also to writers like us. Their words and descriptions capture the heart of the places they visited and describe things that may no longer exist. These words are incredibly important to keep places and their history alive.
During the process of writing the book we have read over 200 journals, books, and papers, the oldest from the late 1500’s, and it’s been like trying to pull together a huge jigsaw puzzle of words and paragraphs to write the book. Without these intrepid travellers our book would be much poorer. We’re grateful to have found, and been able to read, so many incredible journals and books in the last nine years. It has allowed us to step into the past and relive those travellers journeys with them, discovering new things along the way. Zakynthos truly has had a rich and varied history that should be shouted from the rooftops!
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