![]() His principal lover was a Romanian princess, Balasha Cantacuzene, whom he described as “so fresh and enthusiastic, so full of color and so clean.” By contrast, in the wilds of Bessarabia he met the Skopzi, adherents of a religious sect who “castrated themselves to achieve a closer union with God.” In castles and libraries, with hot baths and good wine, he indulged his curiosity about genealogy, his great capacity for drink, and his sexual desires. In the course of his journey, Fermor, a penniless wanderer and frequent guest, met many interesting down-at-heel aristocrats, who, bored on their crumbling country estates, welcomed the company of a well-read, high-spirited, and entertaining young man. This 1,700-mile ramble (about the distance from New York to Denver), while not the equal of the agonizing treks made by Henry Morton Stanley across Equatorial Africa or by Wilfred Thesiger across the Empty Quarter of Arabia, was a feat of social and cultural exploration. ![]() ![]() In 1933 and ’34, in his late teens and after expulsion from school, he walked southeast across Europe, passing through nine countries: Holland, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece. ![]() Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915–2011) achieved three impressive goals in travel, war, and art. ![]()
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